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CLOUDS AND LIGHT, 



CLOUDS AND LIGHT. 



BY 

ROSE LA TOUCHE. 



' He wearieth the thick cloud : 
He scattereth His bright cloud. .... 

And caused the light of His cloud to shine 

Men see not the bright light which is in the clouds." 

Job xxxvii. n, 15, 21. 



LONDON: 

JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET. 

1870. 



I 

TO EDITH. 



I DEDICATE my book to you, Edith, wishing, 
indeed, that it was more worthy of your accept- 
ance, more sunshiny and less imperfect I can 
only hope that, possibly for its author's sake, it 
may help to brighten some shadowy hour, as 
its dedication has brought back to me the 
happy memory of the sunny hours we have 
spent together. 



PREFACE. 



It has always seemed to me vain to apologise 
in the preface for what one has written, however 
deeply sensible one may be of its imperfections. 
But if there are any words in this book which 
will help those who are suffering to look up and 
believe hopefully in the bright light which is 
in the clouds, I shall feel thankful for the dark 
hours in which they were written, and more con- 
fident of the belief which I would strengthen in 
others, that no suffering is unnecessary or in 
vain. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

An Allegory ...... i 

Albrecht Meisinger . . . -53 

Thoughts on Sorrow and its Temptations . 71 
A Sunday Evening's Walk . . .87 

The Philosophy of Sorrow . . -93 

Regret . . . . . 99 

Faith . . . . . . .105 

Hope ....... 113 

In Pain . . . . . .119 

In Weariness and Painfulness . . .128 

Flesh and Spirit ..... 130 

A Retrospect . . . . .135 



AN ALLEGORY. 



AN ALLEGORY. 



It was the night before Ascension Day. 
I sat in my room alone, thinking. I thought 
so long that perhaps I got tired, perhaps 
I fell asleep ; but I saw this : — 

It was a long plain, and there were hills on 
each side in the distance, and many roads that 
stretched away towards the hills. There were 
fields, and gardens, and cottages, and pieces of 
waste ground, and rocks, and people coming 
and going. I sat on the roadside and looked 
down one of the roads. The sun shone full 
upon two figures coming towards me, with a 
little child beside them, and when I looked at 
them I could not take my eyes away. One 
was tall and fair, dressed in long white gar- 
ments, which yet did not touch the ground, for 
they were caught up at her waist by a golden 



2 AN ALLEGORY. 

girdle, and as she walked no spot of dust fell on 
them. In her hand she had a staff, and by her 
side hung a golden dagger sheathed. I looked 
up at her face, for she stood still a moment 
near me in the sunlight. It was a strong 
beautiful young face without a cloud over it. 
She had deep blue eyes, not bright but grave, 
yet full of light, as though they saw far into 
hidden things, and long fair hair twisted and 
plaited over her neck, not golden but gleaming 
and shaded, as if the light and shadows were 
both woven through and through it. 

Strong and true and pure she looked, 
and I did not need the voice that spoke 
to me, to tell me her name was Truth. 
Hand in hand with her came her sister, and 
I knew that her name was Love. She was 
very, very beautiful, far more beautiful, more 
tender and radiant, less calm and strong. Her 
long soft garments trailed in the dust behind 
her and floated in the wind, yet they remained 
unspotted, and seemed at times to take the 
form of angels' wings. She was dark, but with 
that wonderful darkness that seems made of 
light. In her eyes was that wonderful radiance 
which none but eyes that look straight to 
heaven can have. And looking into her eyes I 



AN ALLEGORY. 3 

felt that heaven was near, and I hardly noticed 
how she was dressed, only that in her hand she 
held some crimson roses, and some green 
leaves, which, I think, were healing herbs. By 
her side, leaning his cheek against her white 
hand, and half hiding his face in the roses, 
stood the little child Hope. He had bright 
beautiful eyes and a smile like a little cherub, 
and cheeks and lips like the young rose-buds 
themselves, but I could not see whether he was 
dark or fair ; it seemed to me that he altered 
with every sunbeam. 

Now, as I looked I saw that a shadow stood 
behind Love, like the ghost of a human form. 
While I gazed it vanished and then appeared 
again, and I could scarcely distinguish it, but I 
thought I could trace the form of a beautiful 
youth blindfold, with a bow and arrows at his 
side, and something glittering in his hand. I 
thought of the legends of the ancients, of Eros, 
of the god who had eyes and saw not, of the 
arrows that wounded, and did not heal ; and I 
shuddered and looked at Love. She was 
walking straight on, with the little child Hope 
still clinging to her hand, and I noticed that 
she never looked behind. The figure followed 
her closely, half hidden sometimes by the folds 



4 AN ALLEGORY. 

of her flowing garments, and I saw that it 
shrank and vanished (though only to appear 
again), whenever Truth looked round ; and this 
she did often, as though she would be very sure 
tha,t they had taken the right road. 

Behind Truth also was a form. It changed 
and changed as I looked at it, and vanished 
when Truth turned round. Sometimes it took 
the form of an angel, sometimes of a human 
being, sometimes it looked like a fiend, but it 
had always a serpent clinging to its right hand. 

The forms passed me as I sat by the road- 
side, and a voice spoke to me through the 
distance, "Wilt thou learn knowledge out 
of suffering ?" I answered, "Yes." "Then 
follow these." And immediately I became 
invisible and followed them. 

We came to a great bright meadow where 
were many beautiful flowers. Love sat down 
and picked them with her delicate white hands, 
and Truth stood still and rested on her staff. 
Hope ran backwards and forwards chasing 
butterflies, gathering flowers, and singing happy 
songs. All the flowers, and one or two white 
butterflies, which he had hurt in catching, he 
brought to Love and dropped into her lap, and 
she caressed and fondled him. Truth watched 



AN ALLEGORY. 5 

him with kind sweet eyes, but I saw that he 
seemed afraid of her, and often hid his face in 
her sister's lap when she looked at him. " Little 
brother, why do you hurt the butterflies ? " she 
said. "They are so happy hovering in the 
sunshine, and when you catch them you wound 
them and then they die." 

" There are more," said Hope; but I saw that 
his lip quivered, and he would have cried if Love 
had not kissed him, and given him her roses to 
play with. Then he grew bright and happy 
again, and danced round Love, and ran far on 
into the meadow. 

" Why is the child so timid ? " said Love, as 
she turned to her sister. " I can never find it 
in my heart to reprove him, and a word from 
you who are so kind and wise seems completely 
to terrify him. He is so light-hearted and 
eager, so radiantly happy by nature that I 
cannot bear to see him sorrowful, and always 
grow sad myself when he is unhappy. How is 
it, my sister ? What makes him afraid of you?" 

Truth looked down into her sister's face with 
her kind grave eyes, and I heard her answer, 
" He should not be afraid of me. He would 
keep his happy smile longer if he stayed beside 
me, and I would keep him from all harm and 



6 AN ALLEGORY. 

disappointment ; but the child has not . found 
out yet what is real and what is unreal in 
the world. He is like one of the white butter- 
flies himself. All the mortals pet him so, but 
just when they are fondest of him he runs 
away, and sometimes though they cry ever so 
bitterly he does not come back again — and 
such a little thing will frighten him away ! But 
it is his nature to be timid. I have heard it 
said that none but those who know him not are 
thoroughly incapable of fear, and yet those 
who know him best are the most courageous." 

At that moment I saw a fearful shadow like 
a human form standing in the meadow, at a little 
distance from where Hope was playing. It was 
all dark, with a face so rigid and terrible that it 
made me tremble. It had the form of a man, 
and in its hand was a sword, which it appeared 
to plunge into its bosom, and yet remained un- 
harmed. Hope was picking flowers and chasing 
butterflies, and came running towards the place 
where the shadow stood without looking up. 
Suddenly a lark rose up out of the grass and 
flew towards heaven. The blue eyes of the 
child followed it instantly, and in a moment the 
shadow disappeared. 

" That is Despair," said a voice to me, " the 



AN ALLEGORY. 7 

fiend who conquers mortals, and who is worse 
than Death, because he is immortal ; but he 
cannot bear for a moment one glance of the 
little child Hope, and to those who love the 
little one he can never appear." 

Then I understood that each figure had a 
shadow which haunted it, and only fled on 
being looked at, though, except to my eyes, 
these shadows were invisible. Behind Truth 
stood Error, dark and gloomy, with the snake 
round his right hand, yet able at times to trans- 
form himself into the likeness of an angel of 
light, or even of that being which he followed. 
Behind Love stood Eros, the blind god who 
knew not light from darkness, and loved both ; 
and, following the child Hope at a distance, I 
saw again the terrible fiend Despair, with the 
sword drawn in his hand, ever ready to plunge 
it into his bosom, and yet remaining unhurt. 

Presently I saw that Love had wandered 
away from Truth, and was following Hope 
through the meadow. So Truth stood alone 
grave and silent, and followed them with her 
eyes. And Love picked a garland of roses and 
wound them into her little brother's hair, but 
the thorns pricked him, and he flung them 
down and left them to wither. 



8 AN ALLEGORY. 

Presently Love took him up in her arms and 
carried him. He leant his head upon her neck 
and whispered to her, and she smiled down into 
his eyes. I did not wonder that he loved her 
the best. She was so very beautiful, so tender, 
and her whole heart stood in her eyes ; and 
Truth was perhaps a little cold and grave, at 
least if it was not for her smile and the deep 
sweetness of her blue thoughtful eyes. 

But she had a charm for me that drew my 
whole heart towards her with inexpressible long- 
ing. I would have given up my whole soul to 
be made like hers — I would have gone through 
anything for her sake. Yet she could not see 
me as I gazed and gazed upon her, nor hear 
the cry of my heart which rose up to my lips, 
" I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest." 

Suddenly I heard a cry of pain from far off 
in the field, and then the voice of Love calling 
earnestly to her sister. And Truth rose up 
instantly and caught up her staff (for she had 
been resting) and went across the field. 

To my astonishment the shade that had been 
behind Truth all this time now went before her 
till she came to the place where Love stood. 
She was weeping and wringing her hands. The 
little child Hope lay at her feet quite senseless. 



AN ALLEGORY. 9 

His beautiful eyes were closed, and the water 
dripped from his long gleaming curls, and had 
drenched his green and white garments ; his 
hands and arms were scratched and bleeding, 
and a long trail of bramble with cruel thorns 
hung to his neck ; even Truth, with her firm 
gentle hands, could not at once loosen its 
hold. 

"How is this?" she said. But Love an- 
swered not, for she was crying too bitterly. 
She bent over the form of the little child and 
kissed him and wept over him till he half awoke. 
" He will live," said Truth, and she raised him 
up in her arms. " You must let me carry him 
now, my sister, and he shall not be hurt again. 
But why did you let him stray away from you 
and attempt to cross the hedge out of the 
meadow ? Did you not know of the deep black 
stream on the other side ?" 

" He ran on and on," said Love, "and we saw 
white roses in the hedge, and I followed him ; 
but he ran too fast for me, and they were not 
white roses, but brambles ; and when I came up 
to him he had fallen into the deep water, and I 
could only raise him in my arms and carry him 
senseless back through the briars, and lay him 
down here. Now you are come he will live] 



10 AN ALLEGORY. 

but I know that we ought not to have strayed 
from you." 

Truth said no word of reproach, only held her 
sister's hand, and replied, " We will walk to- 
gether now ;" and then she carried the child to 
a little brook of pure water that ran through the 
meadow, and bathed his face and arms, and 
drew out all the thorns. Love wept as each 
thorn was taken away, and smiled whenever 
Hope opened his eyes and tried to raise his 
weary head, now resting on Truth's shoulder. 
I noticed that she neither smiled nor wept, but 
most tenderly soothed the child, and he seemed 
no longer afraid of her, but perfectly at rest, as 
he lay in her strong loving arms. She stroked 
his hair, and it grew golden and radiant, and 
kissed his forehead, and his beautiful eyes 
shone, and his own happy smile came back ; 
and I saw that the shade, who had gone before 
Truth and bent over him, now shrank back and 
crept into the distance far behind. Very soon 
Hope was perfectly himself again — it was as 
though he woke from a deep swoon, and had 
forgotten all his pain, for he was at once bright 
and playful again. But I noticed that he kept 
close to Truth, at her side, or else a little 



AN ALLEGORY. II 

behind her, following in her footsteps, and not, 
as before, running on in front of Love. 

" Now I am sure he will be quite safe," I said ; 
" that is the best place for the little one, and 
Truth is the best guardian ; for Love can only 
follow where the child leads and fears no evil." 

Then I saw that they came to a gate leading 
out of the meadow, and they opened it, and 
stood in a narrow lane, with a path in the middle 
and trees on each side. 

" Oh," said Hope, " it is dark here ! it must 
be going to rain. Let us go back into the 
meadow." 

" Silly child," said Truth, " it is dark because 
the sun shines and the trees cast shadows. You 
are more wanted here than in the bright glaring 
meadow; and besides, little brother, if it was 
going to rain, would not the trees shelter us the 
most?" 

So Hope only laughed and was satisfied. As 
they walked slowly on, I noticed that the shade, 
Error, again slipped in front of Truth, and ran 
along the roadside, and I saw that wherever he 
passed he bent the shoots and twigs of the 
young trees into strange shapes, and fastened 
down the stronger branches, so that they could 



12 AN ALLEGORY. 

not grow straight. There was hardly a young 
tree by the whole roadside that he did not bend 
or tie down with strong invisible cord ; yet he 
had no knife, and I saw that he injured nothing, 
and hardly touched the branches of the larger 
trees. " Oh that I could warn Truth !" I said to 
myself; but my lips were dumb. "She could 
put a stop to this, but she will never notice that 
the branches are tied down, and even if she did 
the harm is done." But I was mistaken. 

Hope was climbing up a tree looking for 
birds' nests, singing and shouting with happi- 
ness, when suddenly he caught his foot in a 
long twisted bough and would have fallen, had 
not Truth caught him in her arms. She put 
him safely on the ground, and then she drew 
out her sharp golden dagger, and I saw that 
with a touch as she passed she cut through all 
the invisible bands that Error had tied, and 
each bough sprang up behind her straight and 
free. I thought she smiled then, but her face 
grew earnestly sorrowful as she looked up at 
some of the stronger branches and warped 
shapeless trees which no power of hers could 
alter now, and which seemed to say, " You have 
come too late ; we were young once, but we 
were bent out of our shape, and were turned 



AN ALLEGORY. 1 3 

away from you, and now your help is vain, and 
it is no more possible for us to change." 

Love, who was close to her sister, was 
absorbed in looking at the little flowers on the 
other side of the way. I saw her take the 
withered leaves away with her gentle hands, 
and lift off the caterpillars and little insects 
from the delicate blossoms, and drop them 
instead into the strong, healthy grass. It 
seemed to me that all the flowers smiled at her, 
and grew brighter as she passed. And she 
seemed to love all alike, and the very com- 
monest weed became full of beauty under her 
smile. She had wonderful eyes — so full of the 
light of heaven that they threw a radiance 
over everything she looked upon, and nothing 
beautiful or lovely in anything, however small 
or insignificant, ever missed her sight 

I saw that the shadow behind Love followed 
her closely ; and though I noticed that at pre- 
sent his eyes- were unbound, he never glanced at 
the flowers, till they came to a place where 
there was a garden of roses at one side of the 
road. Such glorious roses ! Of all shades and 
colours, passionate crimson and pure white, and 
pale, flushing pink. And there were golden 
roses too, and all nameless hues — a perfect 



14 AN ALLEGORY. 

Paradise of roses. Little Hope shouted for joy, 
and would have run in among them, had not 
Truth kept him by her side ; and this was well, 
for the roses grew so thick and tall that he 
would almost have been lost among them, and. 
certainly hurt and scratched. Love gathered 
some of the most exquisite crimson buds, and 
grouped with them their own tender green 
leaves, and other white angelic blossoms, and 
little pink child-faced buds. They looked still 
more beautiful in her hands, and she kissed 
them and caressed them, and would have 
gathered more, but Truth stopped her, for she 
said they would wither so quickly, and in carry- 
ing them she might drop some of her healing 
herbs. I saw that already she had lost some of 
these, and that her hands were wounded with 
the roses' thorns ; but I do not think Love 
noticed this herself. By and by they walked 
on, and I saw the dark shadow that had fol- 
lowed Love leaping in among the roses and 
gathering them greedily. He flung away the 
white ones, and left them lying bruised and 
stained upon the path, but he filled his arms 
with glorious crimson blossoms till he could 
gather no more, and their petals fell around 
him in a crimson shower. He hardly touched 



AN ALLEGORY. IS 

their leaves, and their thorns did not appear to 
injure him at all. I gazed and gazed and gazed 
in wonder, for instead of a shadow he now 
became tall and strong, a gloriously handsome 
youth, with a face like an ancient god. But 
there was something terrible and fearful in its 
beauty, like the glory of the angels when they 
fell. He stood upright and grasped his bow in 
his hand, dropping the roses as he did so. Then 
he strung it, and taking the arrows out of his 
quiver, he chose them one by one, and took 
cruel aim at the most perfect of the rose- 
blossoms. The arrows shuddered in among 
them, and flower after flower fell ; not a single 
blossom remained upright, even those that were 
not struck drooped and fell down and withered 
as if by magic. The whole garden was devas- 
tated, and as I looked I saw Eros shrink back 
again into the same dark shadowy form, and 
treading through the fallen roses, pass swiftly 
down the road after Truth and Love. 

They never looked round, so they could not 
have known what had happened. Love and 
Hope were sitting on a green bank by the road- 
side, and Truth stood beside them, and two 
little children were coming towards them hand 
in hand. 



1 6 AN ALLEGORY. 

One was fair and pale, with a very gentle 
face and brown eyes, and at first sight I thought 
they must be twins, for his companion was so 
like him ; but as they came nearer, I saw that 
he was far less fragile looking, with thick 
colourless hair, black eyes, and a dull expres- 
sion. 

I do not think Truth saw them, for her face 
was turned away, but the shadow that stood 
behind her did; and came forward and hid him- 
self by the roadside where the two children 
would pass. I saw how the snake uncoiled 
itself from his right hand and crouched in the 
grass, watching the children with bright, glitter- 
ing eyes. The little, fair child was nearest to the 
place where Error was hidden, and I watched 
him as he came past. He had some white 
lilies in his hand, and he was looking up at the 
sky as he walked. The sunlight fell upon his 
fair hair, and it shone like fine gold. He looked 
like a stray angel, only just a little too delicate 
and frail. Then it flashed across me that I had 
seen that child before, and I knew his name 
was Innocence — the little fearless child, whose 
eyes looked ever up to heaven, and yet were 
never dazzled by its light, nor terrified by the 
darkness of the earth ; and behind him came 



AN ALLEGORY. 1/ 

Ignorance, with his head bent down, looking at 
the ground, and his dark eyelashes half dropped 
over his eyes, for he was short-sighted, and the 
light hurt him. 

Suddenly Innocence gave a cry of pain, and 
fell to the ground. Truth was at his side in an 
instant. I saw her grasp the snake in her 
strong hands, for it had already fixed its 
venomous fangs in the child's neck, and throw 
it far away ; and I saw how the shade shrank 
back behind her as she came up, and almost 
disappeared, but it seemed to me that in pass- 
ing it left a shadow on the face of the little 
child. 

Ignorance ran away and hid himself. But 
Innocence bore the pain bravely, and stood up 
for an instant, leaning on Truth's arm, and 
thanked her for her help, and then fainted. The 
snake had hurt him terribly. Love came up to 
his side, and laid her healing herbs on the 
wound, and raised his head in her arms ; but he 
never looked up or opened his eyes. He was 
very pale, so pale that I thought he was 
dead. 

Little Hope came running up like a sunbeam, 
strong and radiant, and as he bent over Inno- 
cence, the colour came back into the child's 



1 8 AN ALLEGORY. 

cheeks (though very faint and pale), and the 
shadow passed away from his face, and instead 
there came a smile. Hope looked up joyfully. 
" He will live, he will live !" he cried ; " he will 
be my little brother, and we will play together, 
for you know I am lonely sometimes. Will you 
not get strong and well now?" 

But Innocence only smiled and stretched out 
his little white hand to Hope, and looked up to 
heaven ; and the sunlight streamed over his 
golden hair and into his radiant eyes, and took 
his soul away. He lay on the ground dead, 
with the white lilies by his side. And Truth 
could not weep, but stood over him calm and 
strong, with her deep, sorrowful eyes ; and Love 
wept as a mother for the child that she loves 
best ; only Hope still smiled. He said, " I will 
keep the lilies and put them in water, and they 
shall blossom still, and I will bring them to In- 
nocence one day ; for I am sure he is happy, 
very, very happy, somewhere far away, and I 
shall find him again and come to him. Shall I 
not?" and he looked up wistfully at Truth. 
She did not answer, and only kissed him ten- 
derly; but Love was comforted. 

Then they walked on together, but Truth was 
still very sorrowful, and only spoke of the little 



AN ALLEGORY. 1 9 

child. "I had known him before," she said, 
" and there was nothing on the whole earth more 
dear to me ; for when he was quite an infant I 
carried him in my arms, and now the earth is 
very dark and sad to me. It is well for Inno- 
cence, he who could not bear to hear of sorrow, 
and who did not know of sin, that at the first 
trouble he died, and only knew of suffering as 
the doorway into heaven. But for me it is a 
long dreary way, and I may not hide my eyes 
from suffering and sorrow, nor cease to fight 
against sin ; and yet in the end I can do so 
little, and am either unknown or hated in this 
weary, evil world ! " 

I saw that as Truth said this she dropped her 
staff, and as she bent to pick it up again, Love 
and Hope passed on. 

But Truth was not alone, for on a green bank 
on one side of the road, under an olive tree, 
sat a young girl. She had some roses in her 
lap, but they were half withered, and she crushed 
them in her hands. Yet she did not look un- 
happy, and I wondered why Truth stopped and 
gazed at her with such tenderly mournful eyes ; 
but I saw that for the time she had forgotten 
her own sorrow. 

The girl sat with her head bent down, as 



20 AN ALLEGORY. 

though she was thinking, and did not raise her 
eyes till Truth came close to her ; then she 
looked up straight into Truth's eyes, and her 
lips moved as though she would have spoken, 
but no sound came. 

"My child/' said Truth, "you have wanted 
me, for I never come except to those who need 
my help, and I never leave those who seek for 
me till I have given them help. Tell me, what 
can I do for you ? " 

" Will you help me?" said the girl; and as 
she looked up the second time, I saw that indeed 
she needed help, for on her face was the shadow 
of deep pain ; and yet, I know not why, it re- 
minded me of the face of the child Hope. 
. " I have lost my way," she said (for Truth was 
silent, and only answered the girl by taking her 
hand) ; " I did not mind at first, for this path 
was so beautiful ; but now I am tired, and I do 
not know where this road will lead to, nor which 
way to take. So I sat under this olive tree and 
waited, and Love and Hope went by, but I was 
too tired to follow them. And now I must not 
wait here any longer, for my Father's home is 
far off, and yet I must be journeying there 
before night. If you know the way, tell 
me." 



.AN ALLEGORY. 21 

" I will guide you," answered Truth, " if you 
will be guided by me, my child, whether the way 
be bright, or long and hard." 

So Truth took her by the hand and led her a 
little way down the road to another path, and I 
saw that the shade that had followed Truth ran 
on in front and stood in the pathway, so that he 
cast a shadow down it, and made it look very 
dark and gloomy. 

" This is your way," said Truth. " Go straight 
on and fear not. I will come to you again if 
you are in difficulty." 

il But it is fearfully dark," said the girl, with a 
shudder ; then she added, looking up into 
Truth's eyes, " Must I go down this dark path 
alone, and turn away from all that is beautiful 
here?" 

" Nothing is beautiful that leads away from 
home," answered Truth. "Farewell, my child 
— stay, I will give you this," and she put her 
own staff into the girl's hand. " Now, go 
straight on. You will come to a path that leads 
across a common ; there you must walk carefully, 
for it will be getting dark, and it is full of holes, 
and there are crags, and pieces of stone strewn 
about. Only fear not, but be watchful and go 
on towards the mountain," and Truth pointed to 



22 AN ALLEGORY. 

the foot of one of the distant hills. "I will 
meet you again," she added, as she turned 
away. 

The girl grasped the staff that Truth had 
given her, and for the first time I noticed the 
word " Fides " written in gold letters round the 
top. " This will help her," I thought. She 
walked straight down the entrance of the path, 
and I saw the shade Error start back and flee 
away as he caught sight of the staff of Truth, 
while a broad ray of sunlight streamed down 
upon the pathway, and it looked no more dark. 
Yet still it was a long and lonely way, with the 
common at the end stretching far into the dis- 
tance, and the great black hill beyond. 

I watched the girl till she was out of sight, 
and then turned and followed Truth. When 
she came up with Love and Hope, they were 
sitting in a garden under an apple-tree. Some 
little distance off stood the child Ignorance, 
looking gloomily down on the ground. He 
started as Truth came near, and would have 
shrunk away, but Love called him back. Then 
Truth came up to her sister and told her all she 
had done, and little Hope's eyes grew bright 
and eager as he listened. 

" We must go to the foot of the mountain and 



AN ALLEGORY. 23 

meet her there before night," he said, " and then 
the way will not be so long and gloomy." 

But Truth did not answer him, and Love 
sighed, " She will need my help or healing 
before she gets across that terrible common. 
You do not know how hard and dreary it is, my 
sister, for you are dismayed by nothing ; very 
few have walked there alone in safety, and 
though you showed her the right way when she 
had wandered from it, I alone can keep her from 
turning back now. I can keep her from being 
discouraged, and may help her to endure 
cheerfully all the perils and hardships of the 
way." 

" Be at rest, sister," said Truth ; " she has my 
staff ' Faith.' It would be no kindness to mor- 
tals to make the way always easy to them. 
We shall see her again, and she will not say 
then that the journey was too hard or long." 

Then they all sat silent under the apple-tree 
for a time, till Ignorance gave a shout of glad- 
ness, and said that there were ripe apples on the 
trees, and he must climb up and pick some. 
Up in the very top branches there were quanti- 
ties of beautiful apples, at least, so they appeared 
to me ; but as Ignorance picked them greedily 
and threw them down to Hope, I could see that 



24 AN ALLEGORY. 

only the outsides were fair and good, and inside 
they were utterly bad and soft. Hope took 
them in his hands, but threw them down again 
quickly with a little cry of disappointment. 
But Ignorance came down from the tree with 
his arms full, and began eating them greedily, 
only Truth stopped him. She picked them up 
from the ground and threw them away, but 
Ignorance hid two under his dress, and sat down 
by Hope, looking sullen and gloomy. 

"The tree has such beautiful leaves," said 
Love, " I wish we could do anything to make it 
bear better fruit." 

"Yes," said Truth, gravely, "but at least it 
must deceive no longer, and disappoint people 
by its falsely beautiful fruit." And with her 
golden dagger she cut away the apples that 
hung within her reach ; and then, as she shook 
the stem of the tree, all the remaining ones fell 
at her feet, and I noticed that, as they fell, 
they shrank and looked utterly loathsome. 

"Now, I do not think any one will be 
deceived again," said Truth. " Come away, for 
this is not a good place for the children." 

But Love said, " No. Do you take the little 
ones, for I would fain see what is wrong with 
the soil or the roots of this tree, and try if, by 



AN ALLEGORY. 25 

any means, I may get it one day to bear good 
fruit." 

" Oh, yes," said Hope, " let us try, and I will 
stay and help you." But Ignorance muttered 
gloomily, " It is good enough as it is." Truth 
said, " You are right, my sister ; you shall take 
my golden dagger and graft into it a shoot from 
a better apple-tree, and it may be that in the 
end, it will bring forth fruit unto perfection. 
You are a better gardener than I am, for I can 
only prune the trees and cut away their fruitless 
branches, while you can almost change their 
nature with your tender care." So Love stayed 
behind, and Truth and Hope and Ignorance 
went on together. 

They came to a place where the road 
stopped, and there they sat down to rest. 
Many people passed by, all going towards the 
great common, where they separated and took 
different ways. I wondered that Truth did not 
speak to them, for some of them looked very 
sorrowful, and many were carrying heavy 
burdens, and looked perplexed and full of pain. 
But Truth was silent and still, and though they 
passed close to her she appeared to be invisible 
to their eyes. Some beckoned to Hope to 
come with them, and he looked up and smiled, 



26 AN ALLEGORY. 

and would follow them a little way, and then 
grow shy and come back to Truth. 

Presently some girls and boys came past, 
laughing and talking. They called to Igno- 
rance, and took him by the hand, and he 
followed them willingly, but they were too rough 
for him — they pulled the apples out of his 
pocket, and told him that they could get him 
far finer ones that were " black all through, and 
all the better for that." And they asked him 
questions, and told him things he did not 
understand, and walked so fast that he grew 
tired and crept back to Truth. She was not 
alone now, for beside her stood two men, and a 
beautiful little boy was playing with Hope. 
He was so like Innocence that I almost thought 
the dead child had come back again to life, 
only that he looked a little older and stronger, 
and his eyes were a deep blue instead of golden 
brown. He had a little bunch of wild flowers 
in his hand, and in the other some strange 
creeping insects, which he was showing to 
Hope, and he did not seem at all to mind their 
crawling over his little white hand. This was 
Purity, and beside Truth stood Wisdom and 
Experience. Wisdom held some books under 
his arm, and had a kind, grave face. He 



AN ALLEGORY. 2*] 

held out his hand to Ignorance, and drew him 
to his side, and the boy looked up with a smile, 
brighter than any I had seen upon his face 
before. Experience also had a book in his 
hand full of notes of the way, and sketches 
and comments that he had made himself; 
and his face, though strong and handsome, 
was somewhat careworn and stern. Ig- 
norance shrank from him, and I did not wonder, 
for he looked like a strict and even severe 
teacher, whereas Wisdom had the look of a 
loving father with kind and wise eyes. Experi- 
ence was talking to Truth (and I noticed that 
though she looked at Ignorance when he came 
back, she said not a word of reproach to him 
for having strayed away) ; he was showing her 
the sketches he had taken by the way, and 
describing the difficult paths he had come, and 
the perils he had encountered, and the adven- 
tures that had befallen him. 

" I met this little child," he said, pointing to 
Purity, "wandering by himself, far away on one 
of those wild hills ; it was evening, and a 
terrible storm was coming on, and he was quite 
alone. I asked him where he was going, and 
he told me that he had been sent by his Father, 
who lived far away, to look for his brothers and 



28 AN ALLEGORY. 

sisters among the mortals, but that he had not 
found them, and was now going home the 
shortest way. I told him (for I knew where his 
Father lived), that the shortest way was too 
difficult for him, and that I could show him an 
easier and plainer road, which in the end would 
not be much longer. He smiled, and said that 
nothing was difficult to him; but as it was 
getting dark, and he hardly knew his way 
among the rocks, I brought him down with me. 
In the morning we met Wisdom at the foot of 
the hill, and we came on here together.'' 

Purity looked up and smiled at Truth. 

" I was not at all afraid alone on the hill-top 
yesterday," he said. " It was very, very beauti- 
ful, and I watched the sunset, and looked down 
over the great wide common, and the roads 
stretching across it, and the dark figures coming 
and going. And I do not think I should have 
minded to spend the night up there alone, but 
Experience thought some harm might happen 
to me, and he was so good and kind I could not 
refuse to come with him." 

Truth smiled, and then she bent down and 
kissed him — perhaps he reminded her of Inno- 
cence. 

"You have a safe guide," she said, "my 



AN ALLEGORY. 29 

little one; at least, if such as you need any 
guide." 

And Wisdom answered, "You are right 
there ; the child is perhaps more fitted to 
be our guide than we are to be his. I knew 
him when he was an infant at his Father's 
house, and what it has taken me years and 
years to learn he knew almost by nature. 
Although he is so young, his little child-eyes 
seem to see further into everything, and his 
child-mind judges more truly than we do with 
all our learning," and Wisdom sighed and 
looked so long towards Purity (who had turned 
away, and was playing with Hope), that he 
never noticed how one by one the heavy books 
that he carried dropped from under his arm. 
Meantime Purity was showing Hope the little 
black crawling things that he still held in his 
hand. 

" I don't like them," said Hope. " Drop them 
down. I only like butterflies." 

So Purity put them down among the flowers 
and grass, and told Hope such curious stories 
about their natures and ways, reminding him 
how his playfellows the butterflies were cater- 
pillars once, that even Ignorance got interested 
and came up to his side and listened. I noticed 



SO AN ALLEGORY. 

that Experience seldom took his eyes off Hope's 
face, and seemed strangely charmed by the 
child's bright radiant smile. There was some- 
thing touching in the way in which he watched 
the child, and the longing, loving look that 
came over his stern features. 

" Come to me," he said at last, " little sun- 
beam, and look at my pictures. Will you tell 
me your name ?" for Hope came to him directly, 
and he lifted him up in his arms. 

u I am Hope," said the boy, who was already 
pulling at the sketch book. " Oh, your pictures 
are not half bright enough. See, I will draw 
you a picture of the Land we are coming to," 
and Hope drew out the paint-box, and without 
waiting for permission he touched up Expe- 
rience's sketches and painted a lovely little 
picture at the end of his book with green fields, 
and happy sunshine, and a river, and blue hills. 

"Thank you, my little angel," said Experience, 
and his face looked- no more stern. " I shall 
keep your picture always, and look at it every 
day, and your little face in my heart, and then 
I do not think I shall mind how long and rough 
the journey before me may be. Will you not 
give me one lock of your golden hair?" 

So Hope gave a little curl of his shining 



AN ALLEGORY. 3 I 

hair, like a ray of light. And Experience kissed 
him, and put it in his breast, and turned away. 

Now I noticed that Truth seemed troubled 
and looked back often, for it was getting late, 
and Love had not yet joined them. And as she 
watched for her, I saw the shade Eros suddenly 
come up the path, pass close before Truth, and 
then disappear. I thought Truth shuddered as 
he passed her, and yet certainly she had not 
seen him, though she had looked straight. down 
the road by which he came, watching for Love. 
Presently Hope called out joyfully, "She is 
coming! she is coming!" and ran forward to 
meet her. And Love came near, holding her 
little brother by the hand, and stood beside 
Truth, and gave her back her golden dagger, 
and told her all that had befallen since they 
parted. 

" I think the tree will bear good fruit now," she 
said ; " I have done all I could for it, and it is not 
often that I labour in vain. You must come back 
and see it after a time, my sister, and then if it 
remains bad we must indeed cut it dow r n." 

Upon this, Purity, who had been listening, 
looked up into Love's face with wondering eyes, 
and said, " Why does the tree bear bad fruit ? 
and why must you cut it down ?" 



32 AN ALLEGORY. 

But when Love was going to answer, Wisdom 
stopped her, " It is of no use trying to explain 
to the child anything about evil, for he cannot 
understand it ; it is as if he walked through the 
world blindfold, and yet was taught and guided 
by heavenly instinct. But of Sin he knows no- 
thing, and of Suffering very little ; for the one 
flees away whenever he approaches, and the 
other he is given power to heal with the light of- 
his fearless eyes and the touch of his small white 
hands." And Wisdom took up Purity in his 
arms (which were empty, now that he had 
dropped his books), and carried him off among 
some olive trees, looking like one of the grave 
old saints of ancient pictures, " bearing a lily in 
his hand." 

Then Truth turned to her sister, " It is getting 
late," she said, " and we ought to be going on, 
for we have a long way before us." So they 
went on together, and Hope ran on in front ; 
but Ignorance lingered behind, and then crept 
after Wisdom into the olive wood. Presently I 
heard Hope give a little cry of terror, and run 
back to Truth and Love. 

" It is very dark further on," he said, " and 
there are people talking, and — I will stay here, 
I think." And though Love tried to reassure 



AN ALLEGORY. 33 

him, it was no use — he sat down trembling on 
the grass, and turned his face away. 

" We must leave the child," said Truth, " for 
I know that I am wanted, and you must come 
with me ; but we will not be away long — come;" 
and Love followed her sorrowfully, for it made 
her unhappy to leave the little child behind. 

And when they were gone, Hope fell fast 
asleep among the grass and flow r ers, and did not 
once look after them. But the path Truth and 
Love had taken was very, very dark. On each 
side of it grew yews- and cypresses that cast dark 
shadows and shut out the light, and tall rank 
plants grew at their feet ; and among them I 
saw the deadly nightshade, with its blue poison- 
ous berries. But in one place the path widened, 
and a gleam of sunshine fell upon some scarlet 
passion-flowers and half-withered crimson roses 
that were lying in the grass with faded leaves, 
as though they had been thrown there by some 
passer-by. And soon I saw that we were not 
alone, for from under the trees came two figures 
hand in hand. Close beside them, indeed al- 
most between them, for he seemed to have one 
hand on the shoulder of each, stood the shade 
Eros, but in so strange and altered a form that 
I should scarcely have known him. He had a 



34 AN ALLEGORY. 

face like a fiend in pain, and dark wings upon 
his shoulders, which seemed to cast a darkness 
across the faces in front of him ; and as they 
came nearer to us and looked up, I saw a strange 
and indescribable likeness in their expression to 
his. One was a girl in trailing white garments, 
which had got torn and stained ; but her face, 
except for the shadow thrown on it, was beauti- 
ful — pale, with long brown hair, pushed back, 
and hanging loose, and large gleaming eyes. 
She was speaking earnestly. " All day I have 
sought for you, and have only met you now. 
Why were you so late ? Before night I must be 
at home, and it is dark already. Yet how can 
I leave you now ?" and as she spoke she leant 
closer to her companion. He had grasped her 
hand in both of his, and as he looked into her 
face I saw that he too was pale and very dark, 
but with wild light in his eyes. She trembled 
in his gaze and shrank back, and at that moment 
Truth came close to her. The sunlight which 
was behind them streamed suddenly on her 
whole face and lit up her golden hair. For an 
instant the girl looked straight into Truth's 
face, and the whole expression of her counte- 
nance changed suddenly. She started back 
from her companion, and drew away her hand. 



AN ALLEGORY. 35 

" Oh, leave me!" she said. "I have waited 
for you all day, but now it is dark and late ; I 
must go home, and I do not know my way ; 
farewell." Her voice did not tremble, but in- 
stead of turning away, with a look of passionate 
sorrow she bent down and caught up the 
withered roses and scarlet passion-flowers at her 
feet. 

The youth sprang forward and caught her in 
his arms. " You shall not leave me," he said. 
" Your way is mine now, for your heart is mine." 

Truth came close beside him, and laid her 
hand upon the girl. But she was utterly un- 
conscious of it now, and did not speak or 
struggle to resist. Through the shadow that 
the form Eros seemed to throw across them, I 
saw him grasp her hand again and cover her 
pale cheeks with hot passionate kisses. A 
gleam of something golden and a cry, and the 
girl sank down upon the grass bleeding and 
fainting. 

She was alone now with Love and Truth ; but 
Love stood in the background with her face 
turned away, and Truth bent over her and drew 
out her golden dagger with firm unfaltering 
hands. She had plunged it into the girl's side, 
and cut her hand away from the grasp of the 



36 .AN ALLEGORY. 

youth who, at the first sight of Truth's weapon 
(for she herself was invisible to him) had fled 
back into the darkness, and vanished among the 
black yew branches. 

All was silent. The slanting gleams of the 
sun fell on the girl's face, which was dark with 
pain ; but the shades Eros and Error were no 
longer at her side, and only Truth bent over 
her. She was grave as ever, but her deep lov- 
ing eyes rested on the girl's face, and watched 
every movement there, though she did nothing 
for her. Presently she rose up and went to- 
wards her sister. I saw the girl's eyes following 
her wistfully, but as she tried to raise herself 
and turn in Truth's direction, she fell back and 
fainted again with pain. 

And Truth, though her face was turned away, 
seemed to know that the girl had wished to 
follow her, for I heard her saying, " She is saved. 
She will live, my sister, and will live to follow 
me. And now she will love the light and 
straight paths, and shrink from that which only 
lives in darkness." Then Love and Truth came 
back together and stood by the maiden's side. 
And she looked up at them with large gleaming 
eyes, and tried to speak, but Truth and Love 
understood her, and bade her be silent. So she 



AN ALLEGORY. 37 

only lay and gazed at them till it seemed to me 
her face grew in some faint degree like theirs, 
and she seemed to forget her pain ; and Love 
laid some of her healing herbs upon her side, 
and it seemed to heal beneath their touch. But 
when she would have laid them on the wound 
on the girl's right arm, she found that some 
were lost, and would have gone back to seek for 
them, but Truth stopped her. " That may not 
be," she said. " Leave it ; it is better so. I 
will take all the pain away in time, but we are 
powerless to restore that which, from being 
joined to evil, I was forced to cut away." And 
Truth tore off a little piece of her own white rai- 
ment and bound up the wxoinded wrist ; and I 
noticed that the girl never flinched, but looked 
up into Truth's eyes, and though her own were 
filled with tears, there was a grateful loving 
look on her pale face, which I am sure Truth 
saw, for she bent down and kissed her. 

But Love was distressed because of the stains 
and tears in the girl's white raiment, and tried 
to brush the dust away, and under her delicate 
fingers it became white and whole again. 

" And now," said Truth, " we must leave you, 
and when we come again we will bring the 
little child Hope with us ; but you must rest 



38 AN ALLEGORY. 

here now, and when you grow stronger I will 
show you the shortest way out of these shadows, 
and back into the light. But you must follow 
my guidance, even though you are tired and 
weak, and go no more into so dark a place as 
this." 

And as Truth turned away, I saw the girl 
raise herself and stretch out a weak hand to- 
wards the dying passion-flowers and roses that 
still lay at her feet ; but Truth looked back and 
turned and held her hand. " No, my child," she 
said firmly, " these are no more for you. You 
must leave them with the darkness and the past, 
and forget them if you can. If you take them 
in your hands they will but wither, and in 
withering stain your garments. Farewell." 

So Truth and Love went back to Hope, and 
they found him asleep in the warm grass with a 
bunch of wild heartsease in his hand, and the 
lilies that he had kept after the death of Inno- 
cence still by his side. They woke him, and he 
started up joyfully with his own radiant smile. 

Then Truth told him a little about the girl, 
and asked him to come and see her ; and Love 
took him by the hand, and they went back 
down the lane together. Hope still held his 
little bouquet of heartsease, and the white lilies 



AN ALLEGORY. 39 

drooped across his arms. So they came together 
to the place where the girl sat waiting for them. 
When Truth left, she had got up and tried to 
follow her a little way, but soon fell back ex- 
hausted. And Hope ran up to her and put 
the dark heartsease into her hand, and laid a 
white lily down upon her lap ; and never saw 
that in doing so he had crushed the fallen roses 
and passion-flowers completely under his small 
feet. And then he sat down beside her and 
talked to her, or rather, it seemed to me, smiled 
at her ; and the girl sat right up and smiled also^ 
and seemed to grow stronger and happier at 
each word. 

How her face had changed ! for now, instead 
of the dark shadow thrown across it by the evil 
spirits as they stood beside her in the lane, 
there shone the reflection of Truth's noble 
purity, and through all the sorrow and suffering 
in her face, I saw a gleam of Hope's own heaven- 
born smile. 

After a time Truth came up to her, and the 
girl rose up and walked tremblingly to meet 
her ; but had not Truth supported her she 
would have fallen. " I am stronger now," she 
said. "Will you show me the way home ?" So 
Truth took her by the hand and led her slowly 



40 AN ALLEGORY. 

on, while Love and Hope went hand in hand in 
front. And I noticed that, in going back, the 
walk was all uphill, though, coming down it, it 
appeared smooth and flat; and many a time the 
girl would have fainted had not Truth sup- 
ported her ; but Truth never spoke to her, nor 
offered to let her rest, and the girl walked 
bravely on. 

By and by her long white garments tripped 
her up and she fell, and then Truth raised her 
and called to Hope to come and sit beside her 
while she rested for a time. And before they 
went on again, Truth girded up the girl's white 
raiment with her own golden belt, that she 
might not stumble again ; and on the belt was 
written — Obedience. 

So they went on slowly ; and as they walked 
together, the face of the girl grew more and 
more like that of her companion, and all evil 
shadows and memories seemed to have passed 
away from it, though she still looked very wan 
and pale, and each step appeared to be painful 
to her. 

At last they came out of the lane and back 
into the road, and Truth pointed out the way 
the girl had to go, and told her to be strong and 
go forward, forgetting the things that were be- 



AN ALLEGORY. 4 1 

hind ; and Love and Hope followed her with 
their eyes ; and so they separated, and Love 
and Truth and Hope were alone once more. 

It was getting towards evening, and though 
not nearly as dark as in the lane, still the sha- 
dows were lengthening, and the sun sinking in 
the west. Presently they came to a field of 
long, beautiful, green grass. There was a little 
stream running through the middle of it, and 
trees on each side, and bright flowers, and in the 
field were many sheep and goats and little 
lambs feeding. 

"Ah!" said Hope, "let us go in there. I 
want a little lamb to play with." 

Now I saw that many of the sheep were 
brown, and some of the lambs black and white ; 
but nearly all the goats were white, and their 
little kids were hardly recognisable from the 
lambs. So Hope ran into the field and raced 
after a little white kid. And behold ! a goat, 
well armed with strong sharp horns, came 
straight down upon the child with all its force 
and knocked him into the brook. Now this 
was the second misfortune that had befallen 
Hope. Poor boy, he got out very wet and 
very much frightened, but was soon scampering 
away again after the little wild goats ; and 



42 AN ALLEGORY. 

though Truth called to him, he did not attend 
to her or come back. Then I saw that nearly 
all the goats were on one side of the little 
stream, and the sheep on the other; and walking 
through the field on the opposite side to Hope, 
among the sheep, I saw two figures — a man and 
a little boy. Almost at once I recognised them 
as Wisdom and Purity. Wisdom had a small 
white lamb in his arms ; and an old brown sheep 
walked by the side of Purity, whose little hand 
rested upon its head. And as they walked 
through the pasture I saw that the sheep were 
in no way frightened at them, but only raised 
their heads and looked up, and never ran away ; 
and many little lambs followed Purity, and 
some grave, quiet old sheep. 

And Purity and Wisdom came through the 
field towards Truth. Then I remembered the 
boy Ignorance, and looked all round to see if 
I could find him also, but he was not there. 

Then Wisdom and Love sat down together, 
and Truth and little Purity wandered through 
the grass among the sheep and lambs in the 
pleasant evening light. And by and by I saw 
Hope coming back across the field looking 
very crestfallen and tired, and he followed them 
at a distance with his head hanging down. The 



AN ALLEGORY. 43 

little kids had run too fast, and led him quite 
out of the field, and over hedges, and into rough 
places, and the old goats had frightened and 
scratched him ; but as he followed Truth I saw 
that the little lambs came up to him, and the 
old sheep walked slowly beside him and looked 
into his face ; and by degrees he brightened up 
and smiled his old happy smile again. 

Meanwhile Love and Wisdom sat and talked 
together, and I heard Love asking after Igno- 
rance, "He left me," said her companion; "for 
as we sat in the wood, one came by with a 
grave and earnest countenance, and seeing the 
two boys he stopped and talked with me. He 
said that his name was Discipline, and that he 
was going on to join Experience, but that he 
could not bear to walk alone. As he spoke to 
the children his face grew so kind and gentle 
that I knew at once they would be in perfect 
safety with such a guide. So Ignorance took 
his hand and followed him through the wood, but 
Purity preferred to stay with me. And whether 
they have met Experience or not I cannot tell, 
but I know that all is well with the boy." 

Now while Love and Wisdom were talking, 
and Truth and Hope and Purity walked 
together through the field, it grew darker and 



44 AN ALLEGORY. 

darker. Whether I slept and woke, or whether 
I stopped dreaming and then dreamt again, I 
know not, but when next I saw them it was 
broad daylight. They were passing down a 
long straight road in the sunlight, with flowers 
and bright grass on each side. Truth and Love 
and Hope came first, the two sisters hand in 
hand, and Hope running joyously beside them, 
sometimes stopping to make little garlands of 
the flowers by the way. Wisdom and Purity 
followed some distance behind. But in front of 
Truth and Love I saw two figures ; they had 
just entered the road by different paths, and 
now stood side by side. They held each other's 
hands, and as the sunlight fell upon their faces 
I saw that they looked joyously, cloudlessly 
happy. They walked on together, and as I 
gazed after them I thought "no road in life 
could be difficult to these two, if they might 
only walk it hand in hand." 

By and by Truth and Love overtook and 
walked beside them, talking to each other, and 
yet unseen and unheard by the human forms 
at their side ; and Hope ran on in front, and 
threw the flowers he had picked upon their 
pathway. 

Truth called him to her, but he only ran 



AN ALLEGORY. 45 

farther away, singing and laughing; it seemed 
as if his happiness was reflected on the forms 
that followed him, they looked into each 
other's eyes with such deep and radiant love, 
and as they pointed down the road to come, 
their hearts seemed full of gladness and un- 
utterable content. 

But I saw that Truth was grave and looked 
up often and sighed ; Love's eyes filled with 
tears. " Sister, why do you not rejoice?" she 
said, a are you not glad to see two hearts in 
perfect happiness ? Is there anything more 
beautiful to watch than two who go through 
life, finding all bright through love ?" 

But Truth said, " I sigh because they look 
onward and not ttpward, and I know that the 
road will soon divide them, and that one will 
walk alone ; and because it is not well that Hope 
should run in front, for only when he lifts his 
eyes to heaven, or holds your hand and mine, 
is it good for mortals that he goes with them ? " 
Then Love was silent. 

And further on in the road there was a Gate, 
and by it stood an angel. But the human 
forms walked on, for to them it was invisible. 
Then I saw that one was young and beautiful ; 
her calm, sweet face had no cloud or shadow 



46 AN ALLEGORY. 

upon it, her eyes were bright with true eternal 
love, but she seemed wearied, and leant her 
head against her husband's shoulder, and he 
bent over her. 

And now they were close to the Gate. The 
angel stood by their side, but to them he was 
invisible, only the radiance from his glittering 
wings fell upon her face, and made a glory 
round her head. But she grew white and faint ; 
her husband would have carried her in his arms 
and tried to bear her on, looking up to heaven for 
help, but closer to her stood the angel. He 
took her in his arms, and as he raised his dazz- 
ling wings, she smiled. Then the Gate opened 
and the angel bore her through, and Hope who 
had come back followed by his side, and for one 
glorious moment the whole road was bathed in 
light. Then the Gate closed. 

When I looked up again the whole road was 
different. It was still long and straight and 
level, but there were tall trees on each side and 
dark shadows, and the gleams of sunlight were 
few and far between. 

And I saw the one figure who had been left 
alone after the Gate closed, and the joy went 
out of his life, walking sorrowfully onward. But 
by his side was Hope. I thought I had never 



AN ALLEGORY. 47 

seen the child look so beautiful. His large eyes 
looked up to heaven, and his whole heart was 
in his eyes. He held his companion's hand, and 
with his little fingers pointed upwards, till the 
sorrowful eyes gleamed with joy, and for a 
moment grew bright like those of the little 
child-angel himself. 

And Hope took out a little book and read to 
him ; but as he read I saw that a terrible shadow 
(the shadow that I had seen before, near Hope 
when he was playing in the meadow) leant over 
the shoulder of Hope's companion, and con- 
tinually whispered into his ear. They seemed 
to be fearful words, for a look of agony came 
over the listeners face, and it grew clouded and 
dark. Suddenly Hope looked up, and as he 
repeated aloud the holy words in his sweet 
childish voice, the shadow of Despair fled far 
away, and again a look of peace and rest came 
into his companion's sorrowful eyes, and Truth 
and Love who followed close to Hope said, " All 
will be well now ; the dreary part of life will not 
be long to him, and (if he only could know it) 
he will be abundantly more joyful in the end 
than if there had been no separation, and they 
had walked on together in unclouded happi- 
ness." 



48 AN ALLEGORY. 

Yet Love looked sorrowful, and as she leant 
upon her sister, I heard her say, " Why must 
mortals suffer so ?" 

" Because," said Truth, " they will not take us 
for their guides through life, they will not let us 
guard their hearts and souls, and keep them 
pure for the great King. He who is Love and 
Truth would have His children like Himself, and 
when they stray into wrong paths and follow 
false joys, and so go far from Him, He spares 
no single means to bind them to Himself. They 
suffer because His will is not their will, and 
their hearts are not His habitation, and wholly 
given to Him. But He would never have His 
children suffer hopelessly. He would have 
their whole hearts, that He may fill them with 
His love and joy; and therefore whatever clouds 
and darkens this, (however beautiful it in itself 
may be) He in His loving-kindness takes away. 
Only His children will not believe that He 
knows best, and that He loves them more than 
they love anything ; if they could, they would be 
happy." 

"If they could, they would be happy," I 
echoed. My dream vanished, but this thought 
remained. Oh is it possible to be happy 
always ? Surely if God meant His children to 



AN ALLEGORY. 49 

be so, He would have made life different I 
believe that for a time we all must suffer, even 
as for a time God's world must rest in darkness. 
"Heaviness endures for a night," yet may not 
that "heaviness" even, teach us to rest in God ? 
"Joy cometh in the morning." 

The first gray gleam of dawn had come into 
my room, and I looked up. Oh, if our hearts 
would turn to meet God's light, how all their 
mists and sorrows would disperse! 

We think we are alone with grief and pain, 
when Love and Truth and Hope are at our 
side, and only our own clouds of doubt and 
fear come between us and them. 

It was the morning of Ascension Day now, 
for the night had passed. I thought of the dis- 
ciples standing gazing up into heaven as a cloud 
received their Lord out of their sight. Clouds 
dim our eyes when we look up to heaven, 
clouds shadow all our hearts when we would 
pray, clouds of sorrow and suffering darken all 
human lives, but Faith believes through clouds, 
Love knows her Lord is near, though hidden from 
her eyes. Hope tells us that in heart and mind 
we too may ascend into the heavens, and with 
Him continually dwell ; and through all the 

D 



50 AN ALLEGORY. 

pain and conflict, the mazes and difficulties of 
this life, we are promised a Guide and Com., 
forter — even the Spirit of Truth, who shall abide 
with us for ever. 



ALBRECHT MEISINGER. 



ALBRECHT MEISINGER. 



" They thirsted not when He led them through the deserts." 

I AM an old man. The sixty years that I have 
had of life have left me tired, and my sixtieth 
birth-day finds me very lonely. My name is 
Albrecht Meisinger, and I live in Nuremberg, 
in an old house not far from where one whose 
Christian name I carry, lived in days gone past. 
Shall I tell you what I have, what I have lost, 
and what I have learned in life ? I am rich, and 
I am strong. Strange as it may seem, one can 
have a young and tired heart in an old and 
strong body? I have grey hair and a long 
white beard, but (and for this I ought to thank 
God) my eyes and ears see, and hear, and listen, 
and look for, much the same as they did in 
earlier days. I have all I need outwardly ; for 



54 ALBRECHT MEISINGER. 

I have a good home — good and kind relations 
share it with me. I have food, and clothing, 
and health. I have books, and I have 
money, and I have a little white kitten. She is 
lying by the fire while I write. And I have old 
thoughts that often come and visit me, and 
memory that haunts me, and in myself I have 
a heart which carries a great store of love that 
no one in this world has ever needed. Do not 
think I never loved. I did — but she whom I 
loved, God took. She died, but my love did 
not, and therefore I am now a solitary old man. 
And the great love that I have it in my heart 
to give to many, no one needs from me. (My 
little white cat, you have knocked the pen out 
of my hand. Must. I stop, then, and stroke 
you ? Do you mean that you love me, little 
thing ? God bless you for it then. Ah, am I not 
an old fool to love thee so !) 

Did I say I would write what I had lost ? I 
have lost the hope of ever being loved as I could 
love. 

When we are young we do not think about 
this. We believe it unconsciously. Infants are 
loved on all sides more than they can love. 
Children unconsciously live in an atmosphere 
of love. Youth hopes and doubts, and asks, 



ALBRECHT MEISINGER. 55 

"Do you love me?" and seeks till it finds a 

reply. 

« God took the words out of her mouth who 

would have answered me. 

That God was kind to her I cannot doubt — '■ 
but to me ? 

It is a weary thing to walk through life will- 
ing to love, loving, but unloved. What have I 
said? Something that dimmed my eyes choked 
my heart also as I wrote, for that last word is 
not true. 

I have friends. I wish I could love them as 
they love me, but I can't. They love me as 
they love their comrades (for most of them have 
many), next to their wives and children, with an 
open-hearted, true, cheerful affection that often 
touches me, for I know not why they love me, 
save that love is a part of the atmosphere of 
their natures, and that they feel that I love 
them. They do not know me ; why should they 
want to ? They would not miss me ; why 
should I want them to ? Ah me, but I do ! 
Why must life be so lonely ? Why is it that 
those who do not need receive, that those who 
hunger starve ? But I write in bitterness. They 
are true healthy friends. I blame them not, but 
thank them from my heart. Only that heart is 



56 ALBRECHT MEISINGER. 

alone, and hungers for one who would need from 
it that which it longs to give. For I love my 
friends, not because I distribute affection care- 
lessly, but because I love them. Because I see 
in them that which is worthy of my love. Be- 
cause, whether I will or not, once knowing them, 
I love with a strong, binding, changeless love, 
which even their changing could not change, 
and long for a little warm heart-fellowship from 
them. 

I do not covet it. I know I have no right to 
it. Though we set bread before our guests, we 
reap our harvest for our wives and children. 
This is God's law, and it is right ; and all are 
not as I am — hungry, because my harvest has 
been shared by none ; poor, because none care 
to take of my riches, and make themselves rich ; 
lonely, because God so has ruled my life that 
heart, and mind, and spirit live alone. 

Love grows rich by giving, it is said. " It is 
more blessed to give than to receive." It is 
true, but half a truth. 

Under the stars on a bitter night you might 
give your garments to one who was shivering, 
and the joy of giving might be greater than the 
pain of cold — yet you would die, and die of 
cold. 



ALBRECHT MEISINGER. 57 

What have I learned in life ? This — to ex- 
pect nothing. 

To plant seeds, and expect no flowers. To 
give and expect no thanks. Do not think 
I mean word-thanks (who gives, and looks for 
those is indeed poor), but that gleam of warm 
heart-brightening gratitude that sends reflected 
joy back to the giver, dear to him only because 
it proves that he has given joy. 

I have learnt that it is easy to act in diffi- 
culty, to be brave in danger, compared to 
obeying that injunction (which to some is 
needed all their lives), " Wait, and be of good 
courage." 

I have learned that one should not expect 
others to give what one's-self, being an exception, 
requires, and yet that God makes exceptions, 
and gives some of us needs that our lives (it 
appears always) can never satisfy. 

I have learned that it is best to be very grate- 
ful, to make a very little go for much, as robins 
do who find half frozen crumbs, and sing on a 
winter's day. 

I have learned that, to make others happy, 
we must give them what they like to receive, 
not what we like to give. 

I have learned what suffering is, yet I under- 



58 ALBRECHT MEISINGER. 

stand joy best. I could sympathise with it 
more. I know what it is. 

Don't you think the little child, standing in 
the cold streets outside the baker's shop, can 
realise more vividly the joy of the child whose 
hunger is satisfied, than the sorrows of the little 
half-numbed children round him — and that the 
little luxurious lady (if she has a heart) is the 
most deeply touched by the half-starved faces 
in the street ? 

We understand that which we need, even more 
than that which we suffer. Suffering opens all 
our sympathies, especially those for joy. 

I have learnt that experience is not a measure 
or weighing machine to test and weigh and 
judge each other by. 

Truth, wisdom, and ready judgment are often 
turned aside and blinded by experience. You 
judge this one by what you have seen of 
another (whom Providence has thrown across 
your path, and with whom he has not the 
remotest connection), and you judge wrongly. 
I have found it so. Clear sight, truth and wis- 
dom, will give you a fairer view of those natures 
or difficulties or troubles which come before 
you in life, than any consultation of your own 
experience. 



ALBRECHT MEISINGER. 59 

Though we live to the age of Methuselah we 
cannot search our own experience for an ex- 
planation or definition of all that meets us in 
life, as though it were an infallible hand-book, 
or guide, or director. 

If we do, we make many suffer through our 
misunderstandings or injustice — for natures are 
not alike. 

God has given us each our own experience as a 
private lesson book, that we may each learn our 
lesson from it, and grow wiser, and therefore more 
helpful. Not a judgment book to judge others 
by, or a standard to measure, or a balance to 
weigh by, as so many seem to think. 

Nor may we trust too much to the wisdom of 
age. Youth is often only more foolish than 
age, because it follows its follies more earnestly. 

If indeed we might hoard up and gain fresh 
wisdom from day to day, keeping the eye clear, 
the heart pure, and the soul unspotted from the 
world, age would be wise ; but the influence 
of life is, almost imperceptibly, to dim the sight, 
taint the heart, and cloud the mind ; and often- 
times the wisdom of pure, wise, and humble 
youth (when /this exists), is truer than the " wis- 
dom and experience " of age. For the truest 
wisdom is not to be found in the w r orld, though 



60 ALBRECHT MEISINGER. 

we spend our years trying to glean it among 
life's stubble-fields, but is given to childlike 
hearts who desire to follow it. Those who seek 
wisdom because they wish to obey it, find it. 
Those who seek because they wish to gain it, 
only find the world's base counterfeit. 

I, Albrecht Meisinger, have been a foolish old 
man. Would God this night I might become 
a wise and humble little child ! 

I am very tired, as I have said, of life. I 
may live for ten or twenty years more, but those 
years will bring me more weariness than joy, 
more pain than pleasure, more hunger than 
food ; therefore, I cannot but look forward sor- 
rowfully. 

Alas ! this is a lesson that life teaches us. A 
child only looks forward to joy ; it does not 
understand looking forward to suffering, though 
when the suffering comes it cries. A child fore- 
sees no evil, but takes pain and joy, cloud and 
sunshine, as they come. 

How can one then go back in one's old age, 
and become as a little child ? 

I know not. 

How the little children are playing in the 
room above ! 



ALBRECHT MEISINGER. 6l 

They are my niece's little children. Some- 
times they come and pay me a visit. 

Little Gretchen will even steal in alone and 
sit on my knees for half an hour, while I tell 
her child-stories, and show her strange old pic- 
tures in my books. Yet I think she loves the 
kitten best ; all her tender words go to it ; and 
she does not know how I hunger for the love of 
her little child-heart. 

My niece is kind and good, a loving mother 
and wife — what more can I say ? and her chil- 
dren are the sunshine of the house, and I love 
them dearly. 

It is a great blessing that our own love need 
never be restricted by the measure that we re- 
ceive in return. No one can take away from an- 
other the joy of loving. 

I do not think the children care for me, ex- 
cept perhaps little Gretchen. Nevertheless, I 
can but feel grateful to them, for they are a con- 
tinual joy to me. 

Yet it is a different thing to love the sun- 
shine, from rejoicing in the sunlight ; and at 
best, I am like one who sees from the window 
of his lonely room the sun shining, and the 
flowers blooming in the happy fields beyond. 

My life is lonely. Only this very day I vowed 



62 ALBRECHT MEISINGER. 

in bitterness, that I would rejoice no more in the 
sunlight of others. 

" I will no more look for love and joy," I 
said, " where I only find pain and disappoint- 
ment" 

If I hunger and suffer, may God supply the 
need. In Him alone I will trust. My books 
shall be my companions and my interests. I 
will read, learn, and think, and I will teach my 
heart to care no more for any living thing. 

For whenever I have loved I have been 
pained. When God took her away, who loved 
me as I loved, He left me with a great love un- 
fulfilled. I bore it, for I could not doubt God's 
love, and by degrees I found that there were 
many left to love, though none as I loved her. 
I helped the sick, and made the poor happy. 
Some of them only cared for what I gave. Some 
of them cared for me — at least, for the ideal 
benefactor that they thought they saw in me ; 
but it was with a warm half-adoring gratitude, 
that touched and surprised, but could not satisfy 
me. I was not what they thought ; their love 
astonished me. I felt as though it was for 
some other person, and not for me. They did 
not know me, and could in no way love me for 
myself, for they looked up to me as a sort of 



ALBRECHT MEISINGER. 63 

angel high above them, not a poor lonely man 
on an equality with them (at least) in suffering. 

The little children understood me best, and 
loved me half-wonderingly, thinking of me as a 
kind old " Santa Claus," and yet half pitying 
me, bringing me often flowers and strawberries 
and little tame birds, "because," said they, "you 
live so much alone." 

Children have quick sympathies and strange 
understandings or intuitions of that which is 
altogether different from themselves. 

Then I found friends. Those whom I could, 
I helped, and I can never say how the love that 
they bestowed on me (though they had not 
often much to spare) helped me. Perhaps I 
looked too much for their love; but, ah me, 
when the sun shines, how can one help rejoicing 
in it when one is cold to the heart — how can 
one but miss it afterwards when the clouds 
come between ? This year my best friend died. 

I will love none, I said. I will live alone, and 
to God only will I look for love. 

Then I laid my head down on my hands, and 
I do not think I either felt or thought. But as 
a mighty prisoner bursts his bands, so my soul 
would have rushed upward to the soul of her I 
love, leaving "this weary and most evil place," 



64 ALBRECHT MEISINGER. 

where we learn of "evil continually," are dis- 
appointed of good, and find — sorrow. 

• • • • • • 

As I lay crushed and wounded with pain, 
alone in the dead stillness of my room, a voice 
spoke, and to that voice I could but listen. 

" Albrecht, I have loved thee. I do not 
change, though life changes ; I do not cease to 
love, although thou lovest me not. 

" Dost thou complain because men love thee 
not? 

" Art thou lonely and sorrowful and weary of 
thy life ? Listen, and I will tell thee how I lived 
for thee. 

" No one has ever loved as I have loved, and 
yet in all my life I lived alone. They who most 
loved me left me in my need, and while they 
slept, I suffered for their sakes. I died for those 
who had forsaken me. I love in vain who love 
unboundedly. My voice calls through these 
eighteen hundred years, " Look back and know 
my love "■ — and few reply. 

" I was lonely on earth. My very disciples 
knew me not. My brethren scorned me, my 
people crucified me — yet I loved. Day by day 
I stretch out my hands to a disobedient and 
gainsaying people. 






ALBRECHT MEISINGER. 6$ 

" I see the evil that is in the world, as no 
human eye can see. 

" I am forsaken, my love is forgotten, my 
sacrifice is trampled under foot — yet I love. 

"To my children I make 'all things work 
together for good/ 

" Though they walk in my footsteps, they do 
not walk alone. 

" I lead them in the way I went before, because 
I would have them for ever like myself. They 
drink my cup of suffering that hereafter they 
may drink my joy. 

" As my love is greater than theirs, so was my 
suffering greater than theirs can ever be. I 
bore all pain, tasted all suffering, and knew all 
grief for them. Yet they murmur when for a 
time they bear a little pain, a little suffering, a 
little grief with me. 

"Dost thou complain because life wearies 
thee? I murmured not. 

" Canst thou not trust my love ? 

" Dost thou murmur because thou art not 
loved ? I loved without return, and I love 
thee. 

"Dost thou seek death because thy life is 
lonely ? 

" Canst thou not live for me ? 

E 



66 ALBRECHT MEISINGER. 

" Doing my work, life will not weary thee ; 
loving as I loved, life will not be lonely. Love 
me as I love thee, and thou will not hunger so 
for human love." .... So the voice ceased, 
and when I looked up the room was silent. 
My great books stood on the table, but I did 
not turn to them for help and comfort now. 
The sun shone in at my little window, a better 
sun shone through and through my heart, yet 
a deeper sorrow than I had ever felt for my 
own loneliness, filled my soul. 

" I have been ungrateful," I said. " I have 
not loved as my Master loved. I have not 
followed in His footsteps. I have forsaken 
Him. I have murmured and rebelled. God 
pardon me." 

And so I fell on my knees and wept like a 
little child. 

More and more as I thought of His love, the 
riddle of my life grew plain to me. My own 
cross grew light. I had thought myself strong, 
yet when He called me to follow in His foot- 
steps I had turned weak and rebelled. 

I had thought myself able to suffer and bear 
great things, yet when He gave me a little of 
that to bear which He had borne before, I 



ALBRECHT MEISINGER. 67 

thought that He had forsaken me, and cried 
out in my despair. 

I thought I could bear suffering and pain and 
persecution. I found I could not bear loneli- 
ness, weariness, and want of love, for Him. I 
had sought for human love, and I had not loved 
Him. 

From that time life was a different life to me, 
and even now I feel like Peter, who, sleeping 
in his prison, was roused by the voice of an 
angel, and knew not whether he yet dreamed or 
walked at liberty. 

For if I look into myself I am still a lonely 
old man, and if I look through my own heart 
at life, it is still desolate and very wearying, but 
through that greater Love all life is glorified. I 
will love on ; my friends, whether they return 
me love or not ; my little children, who perhaps 
are nearer heaven than I am. Yes, even thou, 
my little white cat, who teachest me that even 
Nature's law is love. 

And I will remember that God's love sup- 
plies all needs, and that the greatest want of 
all is want of love to Him, and trust Him with 
my life, and for all human love. 

" He satisfieth the longing soul, 
And filleth the hungry soul with goodness." 



THOUGHTS ON SORROW AND 
ITS TEMPTATIONS. 



THOUGHTS ON SORROW AND ITS 
TEMPTATIONS. 



" Ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned 
into joy." 

So much has been said and written about the 
temptations of joy to a Christian, and the 
dangers of earthly happiness, that I should like 
to turn for a while to the other side and con- 
sider the temptations of sorrow to a Christian. 

Earthly happiness, it is said, and truly, draws 
the heart from God. When we have all we wish 
on earth, it is hard indeed not to be content, 
not to rest, first, in thankful satisfaction, then 
in forgetful satisfaction ; not to look upon this 
life as the fulfilment of our hopes, desires, and 
wishes. 

The temptation of earthly happiness is to be 
content with little things, and so forget the 



J2 THOUGHTS ON SORROW 

greatest and highest good. In the enjoyment 
of the pottage, Esau-like, we lose our birth- 
right 

What constitutes sorrow is, in general, the 
loss of our earthly happiness, or the loss of that 
which tended most to make life happy to us. 

And speaking of joy and sorrow, the very 
first thought that must strike through our 
hearts is this — Is it not possible to keep and 
hold through life a deep and living joy that 
cannot be taken away — a happiness that cannot 
turn to sorrow, because we cannot lose that 
which is its spring ? 

To this question the Christian must answer, 
Yes ; yet how few Christians live as if this truth 
was a reality to them. 

Many Christians walk through life, showing 
clearly that their citizenship is in heaven, 
breathing the air of heaven, walking in heaven's 
sunshine, guarded and protected from the glare 
and defilement of the world. 

Many Christians look through the mists and 
enjoyments and snares of this life and are not 
blinded or dazzled or entrapped by them ; they 
estimate and judge them according to Gods 
standard of judgment, and look forward with 
pure eyes to the things that are real and 



AND ITS TEMPTATIONS. 73 

eternal ; in a word, they esteem things in pro- 
portion as they are of the nature of God. 

Yet when the time comes that this soul-faith 
of theirs must be tried, how miserably they fail 
sometimes. It is a hard thing to say, but how 
few of those who find religion a safeguard in 
prosperity, find it also a comfort in sorrow. I 
mean a real comfort. God knows there are 
many who put their faith into life, and who live 
and walk by it; yet how few there are who, 
when all joys in life fail them, can yet feel the 
joys of God to be more real, more comforting, 
more true than those they have lost. 

The religion of God is as much a healer of 
sorrow as it is a foe to sin. There must be 
both in this world, because we are imperfect and 
unable to live in purity, which alone is peace. 
Therefore, since the transgression of Adam, 
sin and sorrow have wandered over this earth, 
hand in hand. 

This is the dark side of a truth we cannot 
turn our eyes from. 

Hear the other side — the side which is the 
Christian's joy and light, which is the very life 
by which he lives. 

From sin there is a redemption, from the 
dominion of sin an unlimited, eternal release. 



74 THOUGHTS ON SORROW 

For all sorrow there is infinite comfort. For 
the bitterest of all sorrow, that sorrow which is 
especially and wholly the fruit and result of 
sin — remorse, there is a full and perfect cure, 
forgiveness that takes away the sin, divine 
peace which fills the soul too perfectly to admit 
of any bitter memory of that which is no longer 
there. 

" And yet," it might be said, " are there not 
sufferings which no amount of faith and love to 
God, can keep from being sufferings ? For 
instance, ill health, loss of what we love, death 
that takes away from us those we love? . . . 
Yes, there are; no amount of individual faith 
and love to God, will make life, even to the 
strongest Christian, free from suffering. But 
this is true — all the consolations, all the help, 
all the revelations of peace and truth, all the 
opposites and antidotes of sorrow and suffering, 
come from God. 

All sin, with its results of sorrow and suffer- 
ing, is from the evil one, whose yoke we took 
upon ourselves when Adam fell. 

And as God is greater than the evil one, as 
the power of good is stronger than evil, so 
are all God's gifts unspeakably greater than all 
man's needs. For every great sorrow God has 



AND ITS TEMPTATIONS. 7$ 

a great and surpassing comfort, which, had we 
not needed, we should have never known. For 
every need of man God has a Divine supply. 

If we could but believe this ! 

If we could but leave off laying sin, with its 
results of sorrow and suffering, at God's door, as 
it were. 

If we could think of God as the Father 
and the Saviour, not the Lawgiver and the 
Judge ; as the Healer and not the Afflicter, as 
the Giver of all life and goodness and joy, 
not the Sender of Death, of punishments and 
of judgments ; I think, then, we could rejoice 
in God, alike in happiness and in adversity, 
more than we do. 

What does all revelation teach us of God ? 
That He is Love, that His glory is in man's 
salvation, and that His delight is in man's 
welfare, and that " He doth not afflict willingly, 
nor grieve the children of men." 

Now, it is the knowledge of God that brings 
comfort in sorrow ; without it life would be one 
great sorrow. The keenest sorrows of life 
come from mistaken views of God. 

To know God must be joy — when we know 
Him perfectly, we shall be perfectly joyful. 
But we can only know Him perfectly, when we 



76 THOUGHTS ON SORROW 

are like Him, when we are perfected. Mean- 
time, the more we know of Him, the more 
comfort and joy we shall receive, for in Him 
and Him alone is the comfort for every sorrow, 
the supply for every need. 

Now, it is a terrible thing, but a true one, 
that when a Christian says he has " no comfort 
but in God," it often means that he has no 
comfort at all, or but the veriest shadow and 
ghost of one, not strong enough to make him 
comfortable. The comfort that God gives 
must be greater than any other, or rather, the 
truths that God gives us to comfort us must be 
more real than all else. 

Yet, when we need them most, and have 
nothing else, how little we realise them. 

If it were not so we should find an answer in 
God to every sorrow and every need of man. 

It is want of faith, want of trust in God, that 
causes a Christian to be swallowed up and 
wholly engrossed in overmuch sorrow. I am 
not speaking now of sorrow for sin (though I 
believe it would be true of that also), but of 
sorrow caused by any trial, affliction, or be- 
reavement. 

Is it Death that has taken all your joy in life 
away from you, and left you with a sorrow on 



AND ITS TEMPTATIONS. J7 

heart, and soul and mind, growing heavier each 
day, and which no human power can raise, or 
lighten, or heal? Look to God — your most 
intense love was not too great for Him to 
understand, for He loves more than you can 
ever love. He does sympathise — He can help 
and heal. 

But to Christians it should not be possible 
that death could take away "all their joy in 
life." The greatest joy in life should be to 
walk with God, doing and loving His will, and 
having Him always, who can never be taken 
away. If we put our hearts and souls too 
much into the things God gives us for a time, 
we shall indeed be wounded more than He 
would have us, when He takes these gifts away. 

There is but one thing He has promised His 
children at all times and for ever, and that is 
Himself. In love for us, He tells us to love 
that most which can never be taken away from 
us, which is also beyond all calculation, most 
worthy of our love. And if, in the place of 
Him, we put that which is His creature and 
His gift to us for a time, it is indeed well for 
us that it is taken away. It is not a punish- 
ment of God, it is but that He takes us by the 
hand, and leads us to a higher good. 



?8 THOUGHTS ON SORROW. 

Why should we look back and resist Him, 
and, in our fearful want of Faith, question His 
love to us ? Only by loving God, truly and 
intensely, as He would have us, can we love our 
fellow-men with the depth and strength of love 
none but the Christian knows. 

Love to God does not make us less sensible 
to sorrow. But it does comfort, and the realiza- 
tion of the love of God is the only thing that 
makes up for (and this ought to be a weak 
expression), the loss of human love. 

After all, God alone knows what sorrow 
death can bring. God alone can comfort, and. 
the comfort would be greater than the sorrow 
if we had but sufficient faith. Above all, death 
should never seem to us cruel, being to the 
Christian the gate of life, opened to him at the 
right time exactly, and no other, and should 
never be a surprise (save perhaps in the first 
shock), being the law of our mortal life. 

The temptations of sorrow are not altogether 
unlike the temptations of prosperity. If it is 
difficult in joy and happiness to walk by faith, 
it is also difficult in sorrow and trial, and needs, 
I believe, a greater faith. 

For resignation is not faith, nor is submission 
even, a sign of strong faith in God. It shows, 



AND ITS TEMPTATIONS. 79 

indeed, an acknowledgment of His authority, 
and a refusal to rebel against His will, but is this 
the only faith a Christian should have in the 
God who loves him, as He loved His Son ? 
This is, indeed, but a little faith, — a faith of the 
letter it may be, but not of the spirit. Faith 
in God should be stronger and more real than 
the strongest faith that could ever go forth from 
one human heart to its truest human friend. 

Faith in God is not the believing of His 
words alone, still less is it the belief of His 
authority, — it is belief in Him. It is the sure 
and certain trust that what He does is well, not 
because He is a sovereign, but because He 
loves us, more truly even than the love of any 
human soul can teach us to conceive. It does 
not show much faith in a friend to believe that 
what he says is the truth — to trust in him, 
when in all things he does only what we wish ; 
but who that knows what a true friendship is, 
does not trust and believe in his friend, above 
and beyond all his words, without even the 
wish or expectation of having all his actions 
explained and made clear to him ? 

Yet our trust in a friend may be misplaced ; 
our trust in God never can be. It is a poor 
faith that we give Him who is more true to 



80 THOUGHTS ON SORROW 

us, more tender, more loving than our truest 
human friend. Oh, shame on our weak faith 
that it will bear this comparison ! Faith in God 
should be faith that does bring comfort in sor- 
row, not resignation alone. 

I believe I am right in saying, a Christian 
should never yield himself up wholly to sorrow. 
It is a dishonour to his faith. Can any loss or 
trial take from him the God of all consolations, 
Christ the Prince of Peace, the Holy Ghost, the 
Comforter ? 

Satan would fain make both our sorrows 
and joys, weights to hinder us from glorifying 
God, instead of tests for our faith, and conflicts 
wherein faith should have the victory. 

Many a Christian will bring God into his sor- 
row, but few will take their sorrows to God, and 
leaving them with Him, receive His peace and 
comfort. 

God Himself will come and comfort and in- 
habit the sorrowful soul, whose hope is in His 
love. But God would have our whole heart, and 
we are apt to keep a part of what should be His 
temple, sacred to our sorrow. 

Unconsciously, it may be, our grief becomes 
our idol, which we are unwilling to dethrone that 
God may reign supreme. We let the cold image 



AND ITS TEMPTATIONS. 8 1 

of our sorrow stand in the sacred place, and 
will not open its door to the living, loving Spirit 
of God. 

Yet Satan says, "You are resigned, you are 
submissive, all is well," and we believe that we 
are glorifying God in our affliction. Is it so ? 
Oh, in the sorrows and sufferings of this life, and 
God knows that they are many and intense, 
there is nothing for us but to turn our eyes 
away from them to God (as the bitten Israelite 
to the brazen serpent), no rest for our wounded 
hearts but in the love of our Father. 

That trial which makes us doubt the love of 
God is indeed a fiery one ; but recognise this in 
itself as a temptation of the devil, and God will 
give you power to overcome it. 

Learn not to question. 

Learn to love and wait and be faithful through 
all suffering, through all temptation, through all 
sorrow, and do not think that you will not be 
rewarded. 

I believe all suffering, borne as God would 
have His children bear it, strengthens our 
power of joy, increases our peace, deepens our 
knowledge of God afterwards. " No chastening 
for the present seemeth to be joyous, but griev- 
ous; nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the 



82 THOUGHTS ON SORROW 

peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them 
which are exercised thereby, Wherefore, lift 
up the hands which hang down, and the feeble 
knees." 

I think there are times in the lives of all 
Christians when they have to pass through 
seasons of pure suffering, sometimes even 
without the realisation of the presence of 
God. 

Why this is allowed we know not, but we do 
know that God is faithful, that He will not al- 
low us to be tempted above that which we can 
bear — that He is never far from His people, but 
nearer if possible, in their hour of greatest need 
— that He makes all things work together for 
good, even the terrible mystery of suffering; 
for is it not written of Christ Himself, that He 
was made " perfect through suffering/' and " the 
disciple is not above his Master, nor the servant 
above his lord ? " 

"Fear none of those things that thou shalt 
suffer." These are the words of the risen 
Christ to His suffering Church on earth, "Be 
thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a 
crown of life." 

And for those who are suffering now and 
need present help, and the promise of future 



AND ITS TEMPTATIONS. 83 

rest, I know no more blessed word than 
this— 

"The God of all grace, who hath called us 
unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after 
that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, 
stablish, strengthen, settle you. To Him be 
glory and dominion for ever and ever." Amen. 



A SUNDAY EVENING'S WALK. 



A SUNDAY EVENING'S WALK. 



EVENING church was over, and I walked through 
the fields alone towards home. There is some- 
thing especially beautiful and soothing in the 
evening service, I think. The words of that 
collect, " Give unto us, Thy servants, that peace 
which the world cannot give," sinks always like 
balm into my heart ; yet as I walked slowly on, 
I was only conscious of feeling more tired than 
I had been two hours before, and no whit 
happier. 

The words of the hymn they had sung in 
church haunted me. 

" My God, my Father, while I stray 
Far from my home, on life's rough way, 
Oh teach me from my heart to say 
Thy will be done. 



88 A SUNDAY EVENING'S WALK. 

" Renew my will from day to day, 
Blend it with Thine, and take away 
All that now makes it hard to say, 
Thy will be done." 

My heart had gone with those words ; for 
truly I believe that God's will is indeed the one 
true happy perfect thing, and that obedience to 
it — I mean, a living, willing obedience — is the 
one thing needful. Nevertheless, the wish to 
do God's will does not keep life from being hard, 
sorrowful, wearying, and perplexing to each and 
all of us at times. So I thought, as I walked 
along, and bent my head down sorrowfully. 
My feet sank in the long warm grass, and a 
whole troop of golden buttercups smiled up at 
me. Each little golden cup threw back the 
sunlight, and in them there seemed no echo to 
the question rising in my heart, " Why does God 
allow our life to be such as it is ? Why is it so 
full of sorrow ? " Among the buttercups were 
large, deep crimson clover-heads. I could not 
help stopping to pick one. Then a little to one 
side I saw some orchises, white, and pale purple, 
and speckled lilac, and I bent down and looked 
at them all, and picked some, and walked on 
thinking about them ; and then I stumbled 
against a heap of old stones with fossils in them. 
These have always an especial charm for me, 



A SUNDAY EVENING'S WALK. 89 

and so for a time I forgot my meditations 
upon life, though my question remained un- 
answered. 

Yet it struck me that something in my 
thoughts was wrong. The very beauty of the 
little flowers at my feet, the heap of broken 
stones holding out to me, as it were, a page of 
the picture-book of the world's childhood, spoke 
of the loving-kindness and wisdom of the God 
who had put them there. Why were these 
flowers in the fields ? The gleaming buttercups 
answered me, " Because God loves us and gives 
us innumerable small tokens of His love, that 
we may know that He would have His children 
happy. He has not made this earth a "barren 
and dry land." He would not have us find it 
so. But why then do we find it so ? I thought. 
Why, then, are there times — and, oh, they seem 
long and wearying ! — when life is barren of joy, 
and the constant, daily, tiring trouble and 
pain overweighs all small happiness ? 

I suppose we have to learn that endurance 
and patience and hope are needed daily, that 
our faith must leaven our whole life, and not 
only be called out to bear some great calamity. 
We need God's sunshine to brighten us in weari- 
ness, depression, and heaviness, even as we need 



90 A SUNDAY EVENING'S WALK. 

His grace to strengthen us to bear trouble and 
trial and pain. 

Going out of church tired and down-hearted, 
it seemed to me that the buttercups preached 
me a second sermon ; for they said, " Look up, 
open your heart to take in God's sunshine which 
is shining all around; for to reflect it always 
even in life's gloomiest hours, this is truly to do 
the will of God." 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF SORROW. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF SORROW. 



" Tribulation worketh Patience ; and Patience, Experience ; 
and Experience, Hope." 

I THINK if some of us had written the fruits or 
effects of "tribulation," we should have ended 
them with " fear," not " hope." 

It seems as if hope was the last thing that 
could be taught us by the pain we each of us 
have to suffer some time or other in life. Some 
people say that it is the nature of youth to be 
hopeful, but I do not think so. 

It is in the nature of youth to " figurer," to 
look on into the future, and build castles in the 
air, and see things in bright colours ; but, for 
this very reason, it is also in the nature of youth 
to suffer more or less keenly when these illu- 
sions are dispelled. Now hope does not mean 



94 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SORROW. 

expecting bright things in life, and picturing 
eternal summer-time ; that would be an easy- 
task, especially to a happy soul, in the spring- 
time of life. Hope, if it is worthy of its name, 
is a power that enables us to wait quietly and 
patiently, yes, and even cheerfully, through the 
very darkest and most wintry hours of life, 
looking for and believing in a good which we 
cannot see. 

If we want true, patient, hopeful endurance 
of the trials of life, where do we find it most — 
in youth or age ? 

Not in youth, I believe. 

The hopefulness of youth is very like the 
seed that sprung up by the wayside, and was 
sown on stony ground. The first trial of life, 
the first real need of hope, shows us that the plant 
had really never taken root, and was so short- 
lived, that we are utterly unable to bear up. 
Youth has to learn to hope, and how ? It 
seems a strange discipline, but it is true — by 
seeing its own hopes fall, and learning to accept 
the unexpected good God sends in His own 
way, by suffering and finding out that it can 
suffer^ by enduring and finding out that sorrow 
passes — passes and leaves not wounds only, but 
blessings. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF SORROW. 95 

If youth only knew how patiently middle-age 
carries its burdens ! And this is not, I believe, 
because its burdens are lighter, (for how can that 
be ?) nor always because it has a firmer trust in 
God, but because life has taught it the philosophy 
of sorrow. It can look back and count the 
wounds that time has healed. It can see how 
its own mistakes, the sufferings brought through 
life by the mistakes of others, have turned to 
good account. It remembers how the darkest 
clouds have passed, and sunshine come between. 
It knows now, by experience, what we cannot 
believe in youth, that sorrow does pass away. 
It is not fleet-winged like joy, but it does not 
take up its abode and dwell with us for life, 
though in our first despair we think that it 
is so. 

Experience teaches hope. Oh, well for us 
that this is a divine truth ! 

I believe our keenest sufferings often come 
to us in youth. Perhaps it is that, through 
experience, we may learn our lesson of hope 
early, before the harder trials of life (which 
otherwise would wholly crush us) come. When 
they do come, I believe they are more endur- 
able, because we have learnt to endure. 

" The heart knoweth its own bitterness." We 



96 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SORROW. 

are always alone in our very deepest pain, but 
learning to bear pain bravely does lessen its 
power over us ; learning to hope through suffer- 
ing does help to drive it away. 

In youth we idealise suffering, and therefore 
do not bravely strive to raise ourselves out of 
grief; afterwards we learn that patient, hopeful 
endurance of trial, and belief in joy to come, is 
the true heroism. 

We suffer more than God means us to suffer 
(if that does not sound irreverent), but, after all, 
no suffering is lost ; it teaches us sympathy, it 
binds us by cords of love to those who would 
heal our griefs, (and what sympathy age has for 
youth !) ; it leads us step by step up that ladder, 
whose basis is experience, and its summit the 
most joy-giving of all Christian virtues — Hope. 



REGRET 



G 



REGRET. 



Is it a rule that all our past pleasures turn into 
sorrows, every happiness gone by into a present 
grief, all our lost joys into pain? Is it human 
nature that the memory of the lost things we 
have loved should bring a sadness deeper than 
the joy they gave ? Is there any cure for re- 
gret ? 

" I will answer these questions/' I said to my- 
self, but I could not. If the power was given 
us to root out of our hearts the deepest-seated 
regret, would we do so ? I believe not. What 
one has ceased to love, one ceases to regret ; for 
regret is not memory — it is not a looking over 
the past ; it is the crying out of our nature for a 
thing we miss in the present When we cease 
to miss what we have lost, we cease to regret it ; 



100 REGRET. 

but we do not cease to miss a thing that we 
have loved, until we cease to love it. Love is 
the strength of regret, and regret is a creeper 
that we cannot cut out of our hearts, because it 
twines itself around the strongest affections 
there. We do not recognise it as a sorrow, but 
truly it is one of the most real, I will not say the 
greatest, of all human pains. 

We cannot bear to feel that we have lost 
something — that it is quite, quite gone from us, 
never to return again. We cannot bear to 
realise that we who went out full are brought 
home again empty. We strive to hold the joys 
that are ours no more, drawing them back by 
chains of love, of longing and desire. We, in 
our hearts, cleave to the memory of what is gone. 
We ask it to remain with us, we pine for the 
ghost Remembrance. 

With our own hands we nurture the plant 
Regret; and when it has filled our hearts, are 
they at rest ? 

Oh, human hearts, are not your ways un- 
equal ? I think the angels who watch us must 
mourn, not so much over our sufferings (for they 
see how all things work together for good), but 
over our incapacity for joy, our faithless turning 



REGRET. 101 

away from sunshine, our self-made tortures, 
that we will not desire to heal. 

" Why are ye troubled ? " said Christ ; and 
when He left His disciples there was much to 
trouble them. They did not understand that 
He left them to send them another Comforter, 
and that their greatest loss should bring them 
sevenfold joy. God never takes away a single 
thing except to give us back a better gift. He 
doth not afflict willingly. He loves us more 
than we can love. It must grieve Him when 
we turn our eyes away from His comfort and 
fix them on the thing He takes away. We have 
all to suffer. Some of us suffer by never having 
what we desire ; others, by holding it for a time, 
and then seeing it pass out of their life, and 
some of us by seeing what we love most, suffer- 
ing. God appoints us suffering. Even the keen- 
est thorns of that self-woven crown Regret are 
known by Him, are all made to work into the 
fabric of our life, and fit us for His will — but 
God gives us joy. That is the divine gift, the 
angel that helps to heal heart-wounds as well as 
grief of soul and mind, the one heavenly Sun- 
beam that banishes Regret. 



FAITH. 



FAITH. 



" Have faith in God/' 

What a different world this would be if we 
had but faith ! Yes, if even all those who are 
Christians had real faith. I do not mean faith 
only so far as concerns the saving of their souls 
through the blood and work of Christ, but faith 
such as Christ displayed and taught, in God's 
power and love — in a word, if we had but " faith 
in God." 

What is faith? Is it only to believe that 
Christ died for your sins, and rose again for 
your justification ? Is it only to believe that 
God has pardoned you, and that you are His 
child, living to do His work on earth, and to 
be received at last into His "many mansions?" 
This is a glorious faith ; hold it to your life's 



106 FAITH. 

end, and may God prosper and increase it abun- 
dantly ; but, O Christian, it is but a little faith. 
Peter, who believed that Christ was the Son of 
God, yet wondered that the fig-tree which He 
cursed was withered away. In his heart he was 
surprised that our Lord's words had come true. 

With our souls we believe, with our lips we 
confess Christ's divinity. Still in our hearts we 
doubt His power to save. We wonder when 
our prayers are answered, according to His pro- 
mise; we are astonished when His judgments 
descend, according to His Word ! We have 
need, with Peter, to let our Lord's words sink 
into our souls. 

" Have faith in God." 

Christ expects to find faith in His disciples. 
When He was asleep on the pillow, and the 
storm arose, and the disciples came, saying, 
" Master, save us, we perish," He answered 
them, " How is it that ye have no faith ?" We 
think it faith to pray to God in our peril. 
Christ calls it faith to be confident and calm in 
the greatest danger. He would have us fearless 
when we are doing His will. 

When Peter came to Jesus at the Lord's 
bidding, walking upon the water, he saw the 
wind boisterous and was afraid ; he began to 



FAITH. 107 

sink, and cried to Christ, "Lord, save me." 
Hear Christ's words, "O thou of little faith, 
wherefore didst thou doubt?" And yet we 
should have called it strong faith to come to 
Christ on the water, very natural to be fearful. 
It is not a mere faith in doctrines that He 
expects from us, or a faith in words only, it is a 
faith in Himself. In Him as a person, in His 
Father as one who is our Father, with whom 
all things are possible ; who answers prayer, 
not for spiritual things alone, but in bodily 
want ; who is as ready to give us what we ask, as 
He was to give to Christ, if only we had 
Christ's faith. 

Leaving "the principles of the doctrines of 
Christ, let us go on unto perfection." Let 
us not grieve our Lord, and hear His words re- 
proaching us continually — " O ye of little faith!" 
"O fools and slow of heart to believe!" "O 
faithless generation !" — when we might be strong 
in faith, giving glory to God. Remember our 
faith is to show itself in common earthly things, 
not only in spiritual things. Think of the test 
of Abraham's faith ; Christ would have our faith 
no less than Abraham's. He meant it to be as 
great. Abraham "against hope believed in 
hope," yet we think it much faith to believe a 



108 FAITH. 

simple promise. Christ would have us exercise 
faith concerning clothing, concerning food, con- 
cerning money. It is after He had been teach- 
ing the disciples how God feeds the ravens and 
clothes the grass of the field, that He adds, 
"How much more you, O ye of little faith." 
He would have us feel strong faith in those mat- 
ters. We trust Him with our souls, with great 
eternal things. Is He not worthy to be trusted 
also with our bodies, with the little temporal 
things ? 

If we find a servant faithful in little things, 
then we believe that he will be so also in great 
things ; but with our God, whom we trust for all 
great things, we have no faith to believe that He 
will also care for us in little things. We have a 
far-off faith, but no close, perfect trust. 

Has the world changed since the days of the 
apostles, and has the word of the Lord changed ? 
or has our faith changed ? Is there faith on the 
earth ? 

There is belief, I know ; but is there faith ? 
Oh, Son of God, before thou comest send thy 
faith into our hearts ? 

" Lord, increase our faith." May we trust 
thee with body, soul, and spirit, for the things 
temporal as well as the things eternal ! . 



FAITH. 109 

Oh, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, give 
us their faith ! 

Thou who forgavest the doubting disciples, 
forgive and strengthen us. 

We have been earnest in our prayers for faith ; 
we will believe that thou wilt give it to us, and 
wilt make us all that thou wouldst have us to 
be, if we have faith in God. 



HOPE 



HOPE. 



" Hope maketh not ashamed." 

We cannot hope too much in God for good 
things. We may expect too much of each other, 
and be disappointed ; with God, the strange 
thing is that we expect too little. 

We have not, because we ask not ; and we 
ask not, because we do not believe how ready 
He is to give us abundantly all good. 

Our hope in Him cannot be disappointed, 
though it may have to wait long. Solomon 
said, " Hope deferred maketh the heart sick." 
A greater than Solomon knew of a hope that is 
as " an anchor to the soul, both sure and stead- 
fast ; that, though "not seen " (" for what a man 
seeth, why doth he therefore hope for?") is yet 
a rest, and life, and strength to the soul. 

H 



114 HOPE. 

We cannot hope too much in God's great love 
to us — I mean, we cannot think it greater than 
it is. 

And we cannot hope in His mercy too much, 
if only we go to Him through the right way. 

And we cannot hope too much for answers to 
our prayers, only in hoping we must always re- 
member that the answers will be according to 
His will. 

We have a faith in God, but it is a narrow 
one. We have a hope in God, but it is a feeble 
one. Oh, if we expected more, we should find 
more ! Is it so difficult to trust the God who 
loves us so ? 

We can trust a friend, once we feel we are 
loved ; we have unbounded faith and hope 
sometimes in a human soul, yet we may be dis- 
appointed ourselves, or even disappoint and be 
cast off; but in God our faith and hope ought to 
be limitless, and will always be unutterably re- 
warded. 

Jeremiah said, " My strength and my hope is 
perished from the Lord," but that was in a faith- 
less moment ; for two verses further on we read, 
"This I recall to my mind, therefore have I 
hope." And again, " The Lord is my portion, 
saith my soul ; therefore will I hope in Him." 



HOPE. 115 

And it is not a natural thing to hope for that 
which we see not. We are apt not to hope 
much in each other for the good that we do not 
see. If we have to wait a long time for any 
mark or proof of affection in one who, we know, 
loves us, we are very ready to give up hoping 
or believing in that love. Very seldom, even if 
we know that it is there, can we "in patience wait 
for it." 

And hope in heavenly things is a divine gift, 
not a natural characteristic. 

We can all hope by fits and starts, and hope 
restlessly, when we catch glimpses of the 
thing hoped for; but this is not "a sure and 
certain hope." 

Our hope should be a reality, bringing joy 
and continual peace. Sight is only a comfort 
in sunny days, faith may become feeble in the 
midst of temptations, but hope looks on into 
the future, and rejoicing says, "All is well." 

Hope is like the dove that brought to Noah 
the symbol of peace, by which he knew that 
the waters were abating. And hope triumphs 
in tribulation, and should grow stronger in 
difficulty. 

"We glory," says the apostle, "in tribula- 
tions also ; knowing that tribulation worketh 



Il6 HOPE. 

patience; and patience, experience; and experi- 
ence, Hope ; and Hope maketh not ashamed" 

May He who is the God of hope give unto 
us the increase of faith, hope, and charity ; that 
we may be His true children, and that for ever- 
more our faith and hope may be in God. 



IN PAIN. 



" In my distress I cried unto the Lord, and He heard me." 



IN PAIN. 



" When my heart is vexed I will complain." 

" Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O Lord ! " 

Through painfullness and weariness 
Of heart, and mind, and brain, 

Through days of grief and dreariness, 
And hours of ceaseless pain. 

In deep and desolate distress, 

With none to comfort me, 
Father, Whom I would praise and bless, 

Why art Thou hard to me ? 

I would not shirk the keenest pain 
Could I but see Thy hand, 



120 IN PAIN. 

I would take up each cross again 

Were it at Thy command ; 
But must all hope of rest be vain 

Save in that better land ? 

Redeemer ! Thou Whose sinless head 

Was crowned in mockery ; 
These thorns pierce inward through my head, 

Wilt Thou not pity me ? 
Though all, save Thee, condemn and blame, 

Redeemer, take my part, 
Hide Thou my misery and shame, 

Heal Thou my wounded heart. 

Thou Who hast called me for Thine own 

Wilt Thou not succour me ? 
None ever walked the fire alone 

With fervent trust in Thee. 
The bruised reed Thou wilt not break, 

Thou blessest those that weep ; 
Oh, for Thy loving-kindness sake, 

My worn-out nature keep. 

Why must I bear this bitter cross ? 

Thou hast not made me strong, 
I count no yielded joy a loss 

That in thy sight was wrong. 



IN PAIN. 121 

I give my mind and will to Thee, 

I cast my heart on Thine, 
Wilt Thou not help and strengthen me 

Out of Thy love divine ? 

An angel watched in Olivet 

To strengthen Christ in prayer ; 
No heavenly messenger I get 

Who also wrestle there, 
And feel the burden on me set 

More than my flesh can bear. 

Thou upon Whom my sins are cast, 

Christ the eternal Son, 
I also, until life is past, 

Will say, " Thy will be done." 
Be Thou my Comforter at last, 

For upon earth is none. 

" He maketh sore, and bindeth up ; 
He woundeth, and His hands make whole." 



ii. 

' I cry in the day time, but Thou nearest not, and in the night 
season, and am not silent." 

THOU shalt not vanish from my sight 
And bear all hope and peace from me ; 



122 IN PAIN. 

Nay, I will hold Thee fast to-night ; 
Listen, for I must plead with Thee. 

Have I not loved Thee, O my Lord, 
With all the love Thou gav'st to me ? 

Have I not trusted in Thy word 
Through days of joy and misery? 

Why must I drink this cup of pain, 
This fiery pain that tortures me ; 

Surely it cannot be in vain 
That Thou dost scourge and chasten me ? 

Oh, I have trusted in Thy word, 
And to my heart Thy ways were sweet, 

And shall I serve Thee better, Lord, 
Now that I walk with bleeding feet ? 

Faith fails, hope falters, only love 

Holds Thee, and will not let Thee go. 

Oh, Saviour, hear me from above, 
And in Thy mercy heal my woe. 

" My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my 
heart, and my portion for ever." 



IN PAIN. 123 

III. 

I HEARD a voice from far away 

As I lay dull and sad, 
For very grief I could not pray 

To Him Who makes us glad ; 
Yet like the words a friend might say 

It stilled the pain I had. 

" He who has balm for all our pain 

Knows every grief of ours, 
We shall not cry to Him in vain 

In life's most lonely hours ; 
Oh, doubting hearts, look up again, 

He will revive your powers. 

" We, when our earthly joys depart, 

Turn from His love divine, 
And let each vain regretful smart 

Around our souls entwine ; 
Oh, child, the God who knows each heart 

Could heal this pain of thine ! 

" We weep o'er ev'ry vanished thing, 

We call the winter long ; 
'Tis but the hush before the spring 

When all things wake in song ; 
And we too shall rejoice and sing 

Who now have mourned so long." 



124 IN PAIN. 

The tears no longer dimmed my eyes, 
I was no more oppressed. 

" Strong in God's strength I will arise 
And look to Him for rest ; 

Touched with the light of paradise, 
Life's darkest hours are blest." 



IV. 

The twilight falls in sadness, 

And as I lie alone, 
It seems as though hope and gladness 

Out of my life had flown. 

And pain and depression only 
Are clouding this heart of mine ; 

Christ, I am tired and lonely, 
Grant me Thy peace divine. 

Closer the shadows gather, 

The night grows dark round me, 

But I hear the voice of my Father 
Calling and calling me. 

Though darkness and pain and sorrow 
Cloud and encompass me; 

Joy comes with the coming morrow, 
In the night " I am still with Thee." 



IN PAIN. 125 

V. 

" Hear me speedily, Lord ; my spirit faileth." 

" As the hart pants for cooling streams," 

So pants my soul for rest, 
Oh, Christ, bend down and answer me, 

For, wearied and opprest, 
All my exhausted nature seems 

To call to Thee for rest. 

As captives pine for liberty, 

As infants cry for sleep, 
As spirits numbed with misery 

Long for the power to weep ; 
As suppliants yearn for purity 

After their sins confessed, 
So cries my longing heart to Thee, 

" Lord Jesus, give me rest." 

VII. SLEEP. 

Oh, happy, happy sleep ! 

Rest, aching head, 
Poor eyes that may not weep, 

Sad heart that long hath bled, 
Strange thoughts for words too deep. 



126 IN PAIN. 

Rest, soul, in peace that heav'n hath o'er thee 

shed, 
From calm white wings of angels overhead ; 
Rest in the sorrow-healing, silent night, 
Rest in the depths of goodness infinite. 

Like music to the wearied, mournful heart, 

Like living waters to the thirsty soul, 
Like happy smiles ere happy lovers part, 

Like the long rest, without the funeral toll. 
God's gift to sinless man, God's balm for eyes 

that weep ; 
Thou who dost love thine own, give thy beloved 
sleep ! 

"Thou holdest mine eyes waking." 
"He giveth His beloved sleep." 
" I will give you rest." 



VII. 

" At evening time it shall be light." 

LIKE the voice of a friend when grieving, 

Like peace after weary pain, 
Came the smile of the sweet spring evening, 

After the snow and rain. 



IN PAIN. 127 

The lambs are leaping and springing, 

And above from the elm tree 
Comes the voice of the blackbird singing 

His exquisite melody. 

Also for me is past 

The morning of rain and snow ; 
And sunbeams shall bless at last 

The way that my feet must go. 



"IN WEARINESS AND PAINFULNESS." 



Lead me, lead me, Jesus, 
With Thy loving hand ; 

Though the way be dreary, 
To the longed-for land, 

I shall not be weary 

Following Thy command. 

Teach me, teach me, Jesus, 
I would learn of Thee ; 

Though the shadows lengthen, 
And no light I see, 

Thou my faith shalt strengthen, 
For I lean on Thee. 

Heal me, heal me, Jesus, 
I am tired and sad ; 



IN WEARINESS AND PAINFULNESS. 1 29 

Life is wearying, Jesus, 

Thou canst make me glad ; 
And I mourn not, Jesus, 

For the joys I had. 

Take, oh take me, Jesus, 

For with Thee is rest ; 
Here I toil and suffer, 

Wearied and oppressed ; 
Take, oh take me, Jesus — ■ 

Yet Thy will is best 

" Oh, that I had wings like a dove ! 
For then would I fly away and be at rest." 



FLESH AND SPIRIT. 



Infinite love 
Upholds and strengthens me from day to day, 
Infinite good enfolds me when I pray, 
Infinite blessings wait around my way — 
Why do I not rejoice ? 

Day by day 
Pain and depression wear my strength away ; 
When I would praise Thee, I am dumb with 

pain, 
For suffering weighs on soul, and heart, and 

brain — 
Thou who canst strengthen me and make me 

whole, 
Let Thy deep peace sink down into my soul ; 
Let every throb of pain cry unto Thee, 
" Although I suffer, Lord, I trust in Thee." 



FLESH AND SPIRIT. 131 

Infinite joy 
Shall fill my heart and mind one far-off day ; 

Infinite bliss 
Shall meet me in that region far away ; 

Infinite praise 
Shall fill these lips, which now no word can say. 



A RETROSPECT. 



A RETROSPECT. 



I WOULD look back upon my life to-night, 
Whose years have scarcely numbered twenty- 
two ; 

I would recall the darkness and the light, 

The hours of pain God's angels led me through ; 

Out of His love He orders all things right, 
I, slow of heart, would feel that this is true. 

I, in those years, have learnt that life is sad, 
Sad to heart-breaking did we walk alone. 

I, who have lost much which I never had, 
Yet which in ignorance I held mine own, 

Would leave that clouded past, its good and bad, 
Within His hands to whom all things are 
known. 



136 A RETROSPECT. 

We cannot read our own experience right, 
For God in love has hidden it from our 
eyes, 

Lest we should doubt His goodness infinite, 
When all our countless faults before us rise. 

To him who seeks to serve his God aright 
All steps in life lead on towards paradise. 

There is a voice in weariness and pain 

That tells us where alone we find our rest ; 

There is in every loss a present gain, 
If it but draw us closer to His breast. 

And truly if all ways of life were plain, 

Where were the trust that says, " He knoweth 
best?" 

Oh, I have learnt that faith, however true, 
Fails often in our times of sorest need ; 

Like to St Peter, when the tempest blew, 

We need Christ's hand, or we should sink 
indeed. 

Yet are our darkest hours made short and few, 
Because He will not break the bruised reed. 

Oh, dearer than my failing words express, 
Is Nature's beauty to this heart of mine ; 



A RETROSPECT. 1 37 

Yet for the soul's most utter weariness 
She has no balm nor any anodyne ; 

Her " changeful glories " may not heal or bless 
The human heart which cries for the divine. 

This I have learnt, that God surrounds us all 

With blessings numberless from day to day, 
As round the tents of Israel did fall 

The manna from God's hand to be their stay. 
Could we but count our pleasures great and 
small, 
Our thanks would leave us little time to 
pray.* 

Kind voices, loving thoughts, words of a friend, 
The happy sunshine, the reviving air, 

Music — a thousand pleasures without end, 
That renovate the spirit unaware. 

These I have learnt to know that God doth 
send 
For joys and griefs alike are in His care. 

He gives us small delights for our relief, 
Striving by every means to win our love, 

* "Wenn Du Gott wolltest Dank fur jede Lust erst sagen, 
Du fanciest gar nicht Zeit, noch iiber Weh zu klagen." — Fried- 
rich Riickert. 

K 



I38 A RETROSPECT. 

That we may learn that not the meanest grief 
Is counted worthless in His eyes above, 

Who gives for passing woes and sufferings brief 
Large consolations and eternal love. 

And I have learnt that when His voice is dumb, 
And all around is cold and dark and drear ; 

Sometimes the word of help and light will come 
All unexpected from some friend most dear, 

Waking to double joy the heart once numb 
Who thought not of the love that lay so near. 

Oh, we can help by heart and prayer and hand 
Our fellow-travellers in this wilderness ; 

Not till we reach the long-desired land 

Shall we have learnt how human love can 
"bless. 

Oh, welcome grief that makes us understand 
To help or heal another's weariness ! 

God's grace is all around us everywhere ; 

We cannot flee from Him who works us 
good. 
True human teaching, human help, and prayer, 

Are gifts from Him who gives us daily food. 
He cares for us, and our most secret care 

We cast on Him, by men misunderstood. 



A RETROSPECT. 1 39 

As I look back over my life to-night, 

I know that, looking back, my eyes are dim ; 

I have not done that which I knew was right, 
I have not wholly loved and followed Him. 

Yet this I feel, " His love is infinite, 

And all things work their good who trust in 
Him." 



THE END. 



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